Reviżjonijiet tal-Produzzjoni Passata
7In the Mikhailovsky Theater on February 1, in memory of Elena Obraztsova, the opera Rural Honor was given. The main part was performed by the Lithuanian opera diva Violeta Urmana, the conductor was the Italian Daniele Rustioni. Before the performance, Obraztsova's daughter Elena Makarova addressed the audience. She stressed that the work in Mikhailovsky gave the prima donna "new opportunities and new creative joys." Recalling how important the exemplary role of Santuzza was for her performing career, she wished success to Violeta Urmana, who was to take the stage in this role: “Mom, where she is now, Violeta will hear and, I hope, will help her tonight.”
The opera Aida by Verdi was staged at the Mikhailovsky Theater for the first time in its history. The director was Igor Ushakov, the musical director was debutant Alexander Vedernikov, and the title parts were performed by an international cast of soloists. "Aida" - a great opera of great passions - begins with a very quiet, timidly creeping introduction, symbolizing the emerging feeling of pure love, which will grow to a climactic wave. But this feeling cannot last forever and unclouded, and therefore very soon a wall of destructive “counterwave” rolls over it. Verdi contrasted one system of humanistic values with another. On the contrasting poles set in the introduction, the dramaturgy of the opera is also built, where love and jealousy, the rigidity of an inhuman ritual and a living sense of freedom come into battle.
The performance of the Mikhailovsky Theater "Oprichnik" is one of the main opera premieres of this year. On September 29, it was shown for the first time on the Moscow stage. Theatre. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko gathered many connoisseurs of high art that day. I must say right away that staging this opera by Tchaikovsky is a seductive desire, but very difficult to perform. The composer himself reworked it more than once and obviously left some hints that another interpretation, not quite spelled out in the score, preserved only in his notes, and editing is also possible. The director of the play, Sergei Novikov, and conductor Alexander Solovyov, while working on the modern version of Oprichnik, were obliged to penetrate into the not quite completed plan of Pyotr Ilyich and, as noted by many critics, they did it with the highest reliability. “It is still preserved in the Mariinsky Theater, and in the museum in Klin I managed to see a photocopy of it: the composer mercilessly, right on 5-10-15 pages in a row, crossed out, removed repetitions and lengths,” Sergey Novikov said in an interview with Fontanka.ru » about the manuscript of the opera. Frankly, I'm surprised why "Oprichnik" had not been staged before, as it happened now. Apparently, everything has its time. The creators of the performance not only presented the audience with a magnificent spectacle, but also returned to us a sense of the authenticity of Russian opera, created a fascinating canvas from a very conservative material, where you wait for the denouement with no less attention than in action-packed prose or cinema. From the first minutes it is clear that in this performance there is a magnificent ensemble on the stage, built harmoniously, but at the same time nervously, with constant overtones, with an abundance of plans and the maximum departure from conventions to live dramaturgy. In addition to the work of Novikov and Solovyov, the scenography of Alexander Kupalyan should be noted. In opera performances, the goal is often to show the stars, here the stars are all, it is impossible to single out anyone in particular. I remember how Evgeny Svetlanov once said that if scenery or some performer is singled out in a performance, this is an alarming signal to the whole performance. In Oprichnik, everything is subordinated to one thing - to bring to the utmost concentration the author's intention of the genius Tchaikovsky, the author of the music and the libretto of the opera, which is based on the work of Ivan Lazhechnikov. The performance from the first scene wisely leads the reader from peak to peak, from find to find, from climax to climax. In the first scenes, I was struck by the move with the video projection. This is not just a trick, it is not intrusive, but very effective in giving credibility to what is happening. The performance immediately passes from the limited space of the stage into the Moscow architectural landscapes of that era, air and freshness instantly burst into the texture of the direction. I looked at it spellbound, and when the birds flew across the sky, the effect of being transferred to the living surroundings of the Russian Middle Ages reached its maximum. The part of Basmanov is given to the countertenor (notable work by Vadim Volkov). And here the reception worked perfectly. The image turns out to be ominous and very ambiguous: a reveler, a friend of the king, a guardsman, and the voice is almost female. It seems to me that the idea is subtly carried out here that in all impunity and violence there is something perverted, weak and unnatural. The first act is crowned by the scene of the oath of Andrey Morozov, who compromises with evil for the sake of revenge on Prince Zhemchuzhny, his enemy and the enemy of their family. There are a lot of people on the stage, and not a single person is accidental, everyone moves as they would in real life. The orchestra and choir are superbly woven into the metaphorical theatrical language, where many of the actors' movements do not show the action, but symbolize one or another image in the most complex range of the hero's feelings. It can be seen that the director knows the vocabulary of those times, all the words of the opera are perfectly supported by the gestures and poses of the characters. The brilliant stage confrontation of the characters emphasizes the enormous vocal abilities of Sergei Kuzmin (Andrey Morozov) and Alexei Tikhomirov (the leader of the guardsmen, Prince Vyazminsky). The story of Morozov's fall in this scene is almost Faustian, but the image of the future guardsman is still attractive in his throwings, especially in the first half of the episode crowning the first act. However, a wormhole is expanding in it, the beginning of the path to moral collapse, encrypted by Tchaikovsky in the harsh rhythm of this scene, in the obvious alternation of simple harmonies, in the predominance of distinctly minor chord combinations, amazingly orchestrated. When, at the very climax, a teenager appears on some kind of torture board, the frost goes through the skin. I realized that this is a hint that the best, the purest, is being killed in Andrey. The new Andrey Morozov, the future oprichnik, kills the old one in himself - an honest hot young man. wonderfully orchestrated. When, at the very climax, a teenager appears on some kind of torture board, the frost goes through the skin. I realized that this is a hint that the best, the purest, is being killed in Andrey. The new Andrey Morozov, the future oprichnik, kills the old one in himself - an honest hot young man. wonderfully orchestrated. When, at the very climax, a teenager appears on some kind of torture board, the frost goes through the skin. I realized that this is a hint that the best, the purest, is being killed in Andrey. The new Andrey Morozov, the future oprichnik, kills the old one in himself - an honest hot young man. The second act is a kind of mirror of the first. Andrey Morozov looks at him, but sees himself as different, the audience looks at him and thinks not only about the plot of the opera (the authors of the performance managed to reveal the twisted intrigue of this opera, where Morozov falls into the trap of Vyazminsky, a longtime enemy of the Morozov family), but also about its moral - the moral component. What is important here is Andrei's Pyrrhic victory over the enemy of their family, Zhemchuzhny, who not only offended Andrei Morozov's father, but also opposes his marriage to his daughter (both female parts, Boyarina Morozova and Zhemchuzhny's daughter Natalya, sound absolutely fantastic performed by Ekaterina Egorova and Valentina Fedeneva ). Its meaning is revealed subtly, not in the forehead, but with all moral certainty. Betrayal, alliance with evil are irrevocable. The final scene of the wedding is staged so multi-dimensionally, with such a variety of counterpoints, that the impending drama and the execution of Andrei are keenly felt behind the holiday. This effect is created by highlighting one or another place on the stage, which logically leads to the execution scene, which was decided not as a dramatic death of a person, but as his fall. Andrey really falls on the stage from a high place to the ground. Like hell. The scenery in this regard is built very ingeniously. And even the artist of mimams in the role of Ivan the Terrible, with his short movement around the stage, creates the entourage that is necessary for the correct positioning of the finale. Watching Alexander Solovyov at the conductor's stand is a pleasure. As a graduate of the conducting choir faculty, I was happy to note that in his technique there is not an ounce of work for the public, only a strict horizontal idea. It was this horizontal that Novikov and Solovyov pulled out of Oprichnik. I'm sure this is what Tchaikovsky wanted when he edited this score until his death. Movement, constant movement of all layers. The performance is very beautiful. Scenery, costumes, projections are made with excellent taste. Bright, varied, nothing weighting, nothing superfluous. Sergei Novikov noted in an interview that the main task of art is moral. Well, this performance managed to solve these problems without being too didactic and edifying. I am sure that this production will be loved by listeners of all ages for a long time and will pave the way to Oprichnik for those who have hitherto not appreciated this opera enough.
The Mikhailovsky Theater from St. Petersburg showed on the stage of the Musical Theater named after Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko its latest opera premiere - the rare "Oprichnik" by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. While the 6th festival of musical theaters of Russia "See the Music" is in full swing in Moscow and the capital is literally "choking" from regional productions - operas, ballets, operettas, musicals and other multi-genre novelties - one-day non-festival tour. The Mikhailovsky Theater does not take part in Seeing the Music, as well as in its antipode, The Golden Mask: Vladimir Kekhman prefers to go his own way, not getting involved in the capital's festival games. Nevertheless, the novelty of opera - a genre that he generally does not really like, clearly preferring ballet to him on both stages entrusted to him (both in the Mikhailovsky and in the Novosibirsk theaters) - he dared to show in Moscow, where the Mikhailovsky Theater did not bring anything already long enough. I think it played an important role in this The historical drama about the atrocities of Ivan the Terrible's oprichnina was called upon to make an official from the presidential administration: the move is truly either Aesopian or Mephistopheles. Sergey Novikov is a high-ranking state administrator who "dabbles" from time to time in opera directing: he has more than one production in reputable theaters to his credit. Unlike his previous experiments with Oprichnik, he decided to do it traditionally - without incrementing meanings, reversing the plot and motivations of characters, without transferring in time and other dubious "virtues". Thus, of course, stepping into risky territory: after all, staging a performance without shocking frills, traditionally, but interestingly, is a daunting task. Here it is necessary to show imagination, and work with the actor, and not fall into bad taste. To the best of his talent, Novikov seems to have done everything he could: the scene of the oprichnik's oath, worked out sharply and musically, and the finale - a tragic denouement at a wedding feast with a mimic bloodthirsty king wandering among the guests, like a gilded (due to brocade vestments) like a tarantula, or a scorpion, were especially successful. The first pictures were less successful - static and boring, which the director tried to diversify with a very stilted animation and inept wiring. The realistic scenography of Alexander Kupalyan also turned out to be a problem. Called to strike the imagination of the public with its richness, scope and realism in the style of Fedorovsky's socialist realism, it unexpectedly revealed a situation of stylistic disharmony. Luxurious historical costumes, a variety of props that convey the spirit of the era, and the decorations of old Russian interiors sometimes came into visual conflict with video art, which has replaced large-scale painted backdrops and curtains in our time. The falsity was especially felt at first - later, when other merits became clear in the performance, primarily musical, this awkwardness faded into the background and was practically forgotten by the end of the evening. Finding them in Oprichnik is not at all an easy task. The third opera of the great Russian classic is considered unsuccessful, and theaters rarely resort to it: despite this, the second St. Petersburg Opera House tried to protest the “verdict of history”. The rare opera by the most popular Russian composer is not only a rare guest on the theater stage - a performance based on it, as a rule, is also not long-lived. The problem is not only that it is not staged often: after the premiere screenings, where the halls are filled with music lovers and opera fans, each time the performance is harder and harder to sell. I remember the half-empty Bolshoi Theater in the 1999-2000 season, when, after the spring premiere, Oprichnik was not seen in autumn and winter, and very soon it fell out of the repertoire again. The situation is not much better with the Mariinsky version of the 2015 model, What is wrong with this opera? Indeed, at the Bolshoi there was a luxurious historical performance by Irina Molostova - in fur coats and kokoshniks, as the majority of the public loves, and they sang very loudly; and at the Mariinsky Theater they staged a completely modern dynamic performance in the style of a musical show, in which the vocal work was also generally successful. In fact, Oprichnik has enough problems. This is also a verbose libretto by the composer himself with far-fetched dramaturgy and often strained dramatic provisions. And the inconsistency of the lyrical and pathetic nature of Tchaikovsky's talent with the framework of the folk-everyday historical drama: in this field the composer tried more than once to compete with the representatives of the "Mighty Handful" (primarily Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov) and every time (in addition to "Oprichnik" - also in "Voevoda" and "Enchantress") lost. These are direct borrowings of music from another opus - from the first operatic experience of Pyotr Ilyich, from Voyevoda, which he did not like and was burned in a fit of perfectionism. However, Ostrovsky's play and Lazhechnikov's tragedy, the literary foundations of Voyevoda and Oprichnik, are completely different works in terms of passions, Of course, the general public does not know all these nuances, but they feel in their gut that the opera is far from perfect - and quickly loses interest in composing, especially since the title itself is not well known. Therefore, having decided to turn, despite all the "buts", again to this opera, in Mikhailovsky they began with the main thing - with the musical version. Maestro Alexander Solovyov, the recently appointed new chief conductor of the theatre, greatly reduced the score, removing all redundant repetitions and dramaturgically rethinking some fragments. For example, the second act of the performance opens with a symphonic intermission, which was made from dance music "a la russe". And, we must give him his due, the renovation was carried out not only professionally, but masterfully, and perhaps even talentedly - the score was given dynamism and greater logic and persuasiveness, it began to play with colors in a new way. He coped with it and at the level of practice. The orchestra added with each picture - but not in sonority, which could only drown out the singing, but in an emotional message, playing captivatingly, brightly, expressively. Already in the third scene, where the protagonist of the opera Andrei Morozov, against the will of his mother-boyar, joins the ranks of the guardsmen and pronounces his terrible oath, Solovyov managed to achieve a great intensity of expressiveness. The conductor put a lot of effort into emphasizing the incredible lyrical expressiveness of the unique melody of Pyotr Ilyich, highlighting the depth of his dramatic pathos, which Tchaikovsky possessed like no other. For some, this may be a surprise, but not for the author of these lines. I remember well how in 2013 Alexander Solovyov, without exaggeration, saved the premiere of Der Rosenkavalier at the Bolshoi, literally picking up the conductor's baton falling out of the hands of Vasily Sinaisky and brilliantly conducting an important Moscow inauguration - Strauss's luxurious opera was then staged for the first time in Moscow. And each subsequent meeting with the maestro confirmed that the conductor is worthwhile: knowledgeable, able and not mediocre. It remains only to congratulate the Mikhailovsky Theater on such an acquisition. Solovyov also worked with the vocalists to fame. The incredible clarity of diction, when every word is understood without any interlinear, is a rare occurrence in opera. An excellent balance was built between the stage and the pit: without sacrificing orchestral colors, the maestro never drowned out a single singer, no one forced or strained, although almost all the parts in this opera are sharply dramatic and very strong voices are needed here. Soprano Valentina Fedenyova (Natalya) delighted with the beauty of timbre and lyrical sincerity, whose singing can satisfy the most demanding tastes today. Mezzo Ekaterina Yegorova managed to create a weighty and large-scale image - her noblewoman Morozova is probably the most important character in the oprichnina drama. On the whole, Aleksei Tikhomirov (Vyazminsky), the Helikon bass, convinced me, although his voice cannot be called ideal for Russian opera. The titular hero Andrey Morozov performed by Sergey Kuzmin delighted with confident valiant tops and correctly found intonation. Only the gender concession in the part of Basmanov did not seem appropriate enough: they preferred to take the role of the young boyar countertenor Vadim Volkov, whose harsh soprano sound distorted the character of his hero, In a word, Mikhailov's premiere convinced me first of all by its musical solution - there was a breath of good old opera, where the drama was done mainly in singing and orchestra, where the primacy of the sound over everything else was unconditional. Everything else did not spoil the dinner.
German director Jürgen Flimm, with set designer Georgy Tsypin and conductor Mikhail Tatarnikov staged one of Giacomo Puccini's main operas, Manon Lescaut, at the Mikhailovsky Theatre. It was first performed in St. Petersburg in 1893, but its further repertoire fate in Russia was meager. Flimm himself had not staged Manon Lescaut before. The not-so-famous young composer took up the text of Abbé Prévost in 1890, when Auber's Manon was already happily forgotten, and Massenet's Manon, on the contrary, was played with great success throughout Europe. Puccini didn't care about all this. The libretto was written by several people, from Leoncavallo to Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica (they later became his favorite co-authors). The heroes of french gallant history spoke Italian, and everything sounded in the melodramatic musical language of the opera of the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. At the same time, Puccini in general and in particular in manon, which made him famous, is not limited to the aesthetics of Italian verism, but the verism itself with Manon became richer than it could be without it. While the author and the direction rendered mutual services to each other, "Manon Lescaut" itself turned into a dramatic melodious hit of important ingredients - love, intrigue, anger, poetry, death and a delicate number of references to social reality (Puccini left politics for himself in reserve). The only thing that was important to make Flimma, according to him, was to carefully read the libretto and see in Puccini's Manon a great cinematography. This was done with the help of a sharply contrasting black-and-white scenography by Georgy Tsypin, and then the action from the XVIII century, already retold by Puccini in the musical language of almost XX, easily fell on the heyday of pre-war cinema and easily settled on the set of the old film studio, as the title on the curtain during the overture tells. At the same time, it remains not entirely clear until the end, we still watch the events on the set (and remember Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci") or watch a movie (one or the other, the point of view is constantly changing). However, not only this is not always obvious in Flimm's play. There are many details thrown into the action generously and without pedantry, as only a director who counts on a long and detailed acquaintance with the audience can afford. But either we are not very attentive, or for Flimm himself, the twisting of details to each other and to the score is not as important as the thought, irony, nostalgia and general atmosphere in general. And it succeeds perfectly – the eyes let down, the sharp, comic gestures of dramatic cinema, the cruel passions of noir and even the decisive effects and sad stunts that the film creates at important moments, when the directors use the montage clues of newsreels, Hollywood and Eisenstein repertoire – not only unexpectedly, but also not directly in "Manon Lescaut" with Flimm enters the circus theme and manner, and this is just as natural. like a circus in the blood not only of old cinema, but also of the Verist opera aesthetics. And instead of a directorial, interpretive, modernized, conceptualist, any other opera on the stage of Mikhailovsky, a normal veristic performance is obtained - with comedians, a cruel novel, blood, humor and music full of generous detective intrigues. The performance is equally piercing and old-fashioned, like a filmstrip or a lullaby, which upsets the viewer demanding of innovations, and decorates the stage. Flimm's conceptuality is the romance of the seventies, in love with the parallel triumph of opera and cinema. And as for opera as such in the most traditionalist angles, it is fundamentally important here that they sing well and are expressive in an actor's way, and not the multi-storey accuracy of the meaning of mise-en-scenes or why in one scene there is a director's cracker that takes us from the cinema hall to the barrier of the set, and in the other not. In the premiere episode - two compositions, one - imported, the other - local, and about the second (with Anna Nechaeva in the role of Manon) eyewitnesses speak with great respect. But the first one very heartfeltly tells the story of not only love and failure, but also generally bitter acting fate, and it makes the performance even more reverent. Norma Fantini's voice is not perfect, not strong at the bottom, but all light, soulful and stylistically intelligible. The last scene, with all its flexibility of sound and liveliness of feelings, she conducts in general with a bang. Stefano La Colla's singing is heroically languid and provides an accurate illustration of Verist vocals, from cantilena to screaming to tears, though it overstates the climaxes. Other parts are made as a good framing of the main characters, and Tatarnikov closely follows the ensemble, however, decisively giving the orchestra the opportunity to thickly smear everything with sound, like cinematic makeup, and be truly in shock in the famous orchestral episodes. In Puccini, Manon and de Grieux are young elves who easily pull out tooth-crushing parts. In Flimm's composition with Fantini and La Colla, the main characters of Manon are already elderly people, somewhat faded and awkward, somewhat attractive, especially when they catch fire, and look as large as clowns behind the scenes of the circus or like many of their romantic predecessors on film. Mikhailovsky's first performance is terribly tragic, not so much because the 15-year-old beauty could not choose between tender feelings and wealth and died because of how painfully the story of two elderly provincial actors was told at the cinema. Luck does not accompany them too much in their careers, they have few chances, love is the finest hour, entertainment is deadly, and the ups and downs are inherent in the actor's fate itself, as well as the possibility of death in public, which is easily confused with stunting, is hidden in it. For them, the whole world is a movie, for its sake they are ready to put on plaid clown pants, live and die without leaving the opera arena.
"Love for China in the play was fantastically synthesized with admiration for Mozart's music and admiration for the Rococo style." The first review of the premiere was published by Moskovsky Komsomolets. The Mikhailovsky Theater staged "Marriage of Figaro" with elements of martial arts plot of Beaumarchais, Mozart made Chinese Chinoiserie ... Translated - "kitayschina". It was this style that director Vyacheslav Starodubtsev applied in his production of The Wedding of Figaro by Mozart. Boldly? Quite. Suddenly? Very. Is it funny? Undoubtedly. And somehow so easy, fun, paradoxical, beautiful. In a word, in Mozart's way ... Well, or almost ... The overture captivated me from the first bar - with a really fast pace, “correct” Mozart sound and intra-orchestral balance, possible only with a chamber composition of strings, purity and intonation accuracy of sound. The young conductor Ivan Velikanov took up the concept of the musical director of the production, Mikhail Tatarnikov, almost without losing it. Why "almost"? Looking ahead, we will have to admit that not all the singers “kept up” with the tempos taken: someone sacrificed timbre, someone lacked virtuosity. However, all these losses did not destroy the general tone and level, which can be characterized as follows: "briskly, curly, in love." On the whole, the artists performed their roles quite decently and evenly in terms of vocals and very merrily and artistically in terms of dramatic performance. Boris Pinkhasovich (Almaviva), Maria Buinosova (Countess), Svetlana Moskalenko (Suzanne), Sofia Fainberg (Cherubino), Alexander Bezrukov (Figaro) - they were all in their place, and in some episodes Pinkhasovich and Buinosov made the listeners completely immerse themselves in the pleasure of beautiful singing. A detailed study of the character, his behavior, plasticity, existence in a duet and an ensemble is Starodubtsev's signature technique, who did not learn from Dmitry Bertman for nothing. The heroes of The Wedding of Figaro are quite lively people with a great sense of humor, well, perhaps too much addicted to excessive love for China. who did not study with Dmitry Bertman in vain. The heroes of The Wedding of Figaro are quite lively people with a great sense of humor, well, perhaps too much addicted to excessive love for China. who did not study with Dmitry Bertman in vain. The heroes of The Wedding of Figaro are quite lively people with a great sense of humor, well, perhaps too much addicted to excessive love for China. Love for China in this performance was fantastically synthesized with admiration for Mozart's music and admiration for the Rococo style. Artists Pyotr Okunev (scenography) and Vadim Dulenko (video) created a world filled with the shell excesses of a French palace of the 17th – 18th centuries, decorated with flowers, birds, ornaments and dragons of traditional China. Well, what the costume designer Zhanna Usacheva did in this performance should be discussed at a special workshop for designers. The artist weaved together European powdered wigs and Chinese braids, ruffles and neckline with bell sleeves and wide belts, fluffy whipped hairstyles with Asian long pins, whitewashed faces, fashionable in the era of Madame Pompadour, with the coloring of Chinese beauties of the Song dynasty, and all this is so organic, and all this is so organic that suddenly you begin to realize the eternal truth: So the wedding ritual for Figaro and Suzanne was carried out in the Chinese spirit - with an abundance of peach and plum flowers, from which Basilio (Dmitry Karpov) was seriously allergic. The extras demonstrated elements of Chinese martial arts, and Count Almaviva, in a fit of remorse, almost made himself hara-kiri. True, this is a Japanese tradition, but nothing - here it is quite appropriate. The impulse for "enveloping" the Beaumarchais-Mozart plot was the actual fact of fashion for everything Chinese. Even in the palaces of Peter the Great there were "Chinese rooms". The fact that this impulse has grown so dashingly and entangled the entire performance is, of course, nothing more than the arbitrariness of the directors. But they absolutely do not want to blame them for this: after all, this technique did not encroach on the meaning, or on the history, or on the characters of the heroes, or on the reading of the score. Only gave more humor, freshness, dynamics, lightness, beauty, youth - all that is in this opera initially.
“We must have a director's theater in the opera, and we will cultivate this,”
