I'm Becky Braunstein and this is
Microcosmic Storytime with Becky. Tiny
little weird fascinating stories from
history that no one ever hears about,
because no one else cares.
So in 1936
famous Russian composer Dmitri
Shostakovich who at the time was just
struggling SoundCloud composer on the
come-up premiered an opera that he wrote
called Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk
District. Great opera. Just drama, sex,
murder, there's a whole thing with
mushrooms, so exciting. So he premieres
this opera, and then - unbeknownst to him,
Joseph Stalin comes to the opera to see
it on opening night. Like, Joseph Stalin.
Send people to the gulag every day,
dictator the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.
Dmitri Shostakovich has no idea this is
happening. He is absolutely - he's peeing his
pants, he's losing his mind, he's pacing
backstage, he's throwing up all over
himself. The man's a mess. So Stalin shows up with
his friends, and they go and sit in their
little seats. They're just so rude. Just
rude through the whole performance.
Texting, and laughing at the serious parts.
And just being jerks. So meanwhile,
Shostakovich is backstage peeking
through the curtains
like tearing his
fingernails off, and like,
slashing his wrists,
and barfing all over the floor. So
much so, that when he came out at the end
of the show to take his final bow,
eyewitnesses said he was white as a sheet.
Because he didn't know if he was
gonna get killed over this. Because Stalin
clearly was not having a good time, and
like, back then, people could get
shot in the street just because Stalin
didn't like your face. So he didn't know
what was gonna happen to him.
So Stalin and his friends, at the end of it,
they just get up and leave. In silence.
Without a word. Just get up and leave all
their popcorn all over the floor, just
walk out without even saying hi to
anybody. Not even like a, 'hey good
job' or like, 'oh hey thanks,
horn player, for playing your horn, that was really nice,' nothing. Not a word. They just
rolled out. So then, so THEN - the next
day, Pravda, the national newspaper, which
was really just like a mouthpiece for
the government,
it was like the Fox News of the Soviet Union,
runs this scathing, hateful, just shitty, hateful review
of the opera. 'Oh, it was the worst opera ever,
just terrible, not good,
sad,
thumbs down,
zero hammers,
no sickles,
NYET!
send everybody involved in it to
the gulag.
And then because of that, all
the little other like smaller newspapers
that had already written glowing
reviews about how great this opera is
and like, 'Oh my god, 11 stars,'
'Best thing since...
Fiddler on the Roof'.
(cracks up) They...
So... SO - so they have to take back their good reviews,
because you can't go against Pravda! Like, they will burn your house down.
They were absolutely that
petty back then. Like clearly,
Stalin was a petty man.
People to this day
suspect that Stalin himself wrote that
review. How petty can you be! Are you
serious? PETTY. So like, you know, these
newspapers so they're all just like, you
know, 'We already said that this opera was good,
but you know, Pravda said it
sucks, so, just kidding, it sucks.'
GET THIS - 9 days earlier, before Dmitri
Shostakovich's opera came out,
Stalin went to go see
another opera,
by a different guy,
and like this guy's opera
was just not good. Boring, no drama,
no mushrooms.
It was just like a political,
Soviet suck-up opera.
So Stalin loved it, right, like in that one, he was just
smiling and like singing along, and
just tapping his feet, standing ovation,
'AAH!' just running backstage, 'Oh my god, sign my mustache,' just fangirling.
He liked that guy's opera so much, he gave that guy like national awards, and he gave him
a government job.
But here's the thing:
That guy, whose name is...
no one even knows,
Stalin's golden boy, he turned out to be
a flash in the pan one-hit wonder and
vanished off the face of the earth.
Meanwhile, Dmitri Shostakovich is still
known today as one of the greatest
composers who ever lived.
So that just goes to show you:
Just because somebody
has a lot of power and influence,
doesn't mean they know jack shit about art.
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