Led in flamboyant style by artistic director and chief conductor Valery Gergiyev, St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater opera company is headlining its new season with Dmitry Shostakovich's "Katerina Izmailova" and Richard Strauss's "Salome."


The two productions, premiered in the summer, opened the theater's 1995-96 season and will be repeated in coming months. Both are bright examples of the opera company's capabilities, and both are worth the trip to Petersburg.


"Katerina Izmailova," described by the composer as a tragi-satire, was a project Gergiyev had long been interested in. He has characterized the work as "deeply truthful, very Russian, very dark and very hopeless."


The heroine is a beautiful young merchant's wife who finds everything around her loathsome: the unrelieved boredom of her existence; her despotic father-in-law, Boris Timofeyevich; and her unwilling, weak-willed husband, Zinovy Borisovich.


Her love for the servant Sergei jolts her out of this gray existence but ends up destroying her. To be with Sergei, she poisons her father-in-law, kills her husband and -- banished to a sentence of hard labor with her lover -- drowns a beggar who is attracted to Sergei. Katerina, too, meets an agonizing death in the lake.


The 19th-century Russian writer Nikolai Leskov's tale "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk," on which the opera is based, portrays Katerina as a modern Lady Macbeth, a predatory, depraved and ruthless killer. But Shostakovich pities his heroine and uses her to express the tragedy of a human soul in despair.


The composer sketches merciless portraits of Russian provincial life, musically forming grotesque scenes and characters worthy of Russia's greatest satirical authors. The gallery of ageless Russian characters drawn by Shostakovich includes the aggressive petty tyrant Boris Timofeyevich, the hypocrite priest, the drunkard-informer peasant and the stupid policeman drilling his subordinates.


The opera itself has had a tragic history, having been rejected by Stalin in the 1930s during an era of broadsides on Russian culture. One of the first noteworthy renewals of it was the production by Kiev director Irina Molostova in 1965.


In the current production, the set consists of the huge izba that is the Izmailovs' fortress-like house. Created by the American designer Georgy Tsypin, it is like a child's wooden dollhouse, with sides that fold away. Though architectural and witty, it is nevertheless lifeless and sterile.


It is Gergiyev and his orchestra who really bring the tale to life. They explore Shostakovich's score to the fullest. In the hands of Gergiyev, and aided by the outstanding soloists, the orchestra taunts and threatens, mourns and weeps, blasphemes and swears. In the long orchestral passages between scenes, the musicians reach virtual perfection.


In the central role, Irina Loskutova, singing Katerina's two beautiful solo arias, portrays suffering and sacrifice, rather than criminality. Her portrayal plumbs the psychological nuances of the heroine's troubled character. The role also allows her to show her full technical range.


Leonid Zakhozhayev plays a suitably limp, inert husband to Katerina. But her father-in-law, played by Sergei Aleksashkin, and her lover, Sergei Naida, both of whom should be strong characters, are played too softly, neither singer doing the roles full justice.


Some of the performances in the supporting roles were sung and acted with consummate artistry: Yevgeny Fedotov was superb as the policeman and Vyacheslav Lukhanin was excellent as the priest. The wonderful bass Nikolai Okhotnikov, in the part of the old convict, delivered a masterful reading of his part.


"Katerina Izmailova" is clearly a triumph for Gergiyev. And so is his other major opera project, "Salome," which will be sung again Tuesday.


This production of "Salome" evolved after Gergiyev invited American director Julie Taymor, whom he met when they both won Classical Music awards in London two years ago, to create a new production for the Mariinsky.


The opera is based on the play by Oscar Wilde, retelling the well-known biblical story of the princess Salome, step-daughter of King Herod, who loves the prophet John the Baptist and when rebuffed, demands his head on a platter.


Salome is one of the great operatic characters, a mixture of sexual predator, cold sadist and spoiled child. Both dramatically and vocally, Lyubov Kazarnovskaya portrays Salome as having two personalities -- one an evil siren, the other a Faustian Margarita. She manipulates the colors of her voice to reflect capricious changes of mood, effortlessly moving from a refined, thin tone to a rich, flowing sound. In the end, of course, the dark side of Salome triumphs.


The sets rely on symbolism, such as the leitmotiv of a toppling Tower of Babel. A crescent moon, turning white or red according to the proceedings, serving as a mirror for Salome and a fateful omen. Herod is surrounded by fierce dogs, actors in pointed muzzles made from black leather straps.


The impulsive Yevgeniya Tselovalnik plays a brilliantly cruel Herodias, Salome's mother. Nikolai Putilin as John the Baptist stands out with his resounding, rich voice, which he uses to high drama.


The enormous orchestra of 110 musicians led by Gergiyev is lithe, responsive and unusually careful, reflecting the color and power of Strauss' score but never drowning the voices.


Gergiyev and Taymor, along with the designer, again Tsypin, and costume designer Georgy Meskhishvili, have worked as if of one mind, creating a production that is an organic whole. Bringing together such different talents is a credit to Gergiyev's vision and offers the promise of yet more great things to come.