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4"If there was a hypothetical rating of the success of operas created over the last five centuries, Puccini's" Bohemia "would occupy one of the top positions. Now it is impossible to estimate at least approximately how many deliveries of this work took place on the world's leading opera stages, not to mention those that existed in many Italian, French, English, Polish, Russian, Austrian provincial cities. It was from Puchchin's "Bohemia" that the stellar biographies of many outstanding vocalists began, "wrote Vasyl Turkevych, Honored Artist of Ukraine. In 1891, librettists Luigi Illico and Giuseppe Giacosa drew Giacomo Puccini's novel "Scenes from the Life of Bohemia" by the French poet Henri Murger, read by European youth of the time, and offered his libretto based on the novel's plot for writing an opera. The work was about talented but poor artists - poets, artists, journalists, actors who lived in the cold and uncomfortable attics of Paris' Latin Quarter. The composer liked the libretto. This deeply realistic work was about the fact that Puccini himself experienced in his youth. Starting from the plot of A. Morge's novel, J. Puccini enriched the content of the work with many interesting and very eloquent plot lines, expressive clarifications. The author sought to reinterpret, first of all, everyday moments of the romantic story about the difficult life of the heroes, he selects the most typical for the spirit of the bohemian environment and with new force reveals the hidden sharp conflict - creative youth and man in the street. This is what makes the opera "Bohemia" always modern and relevant. The opera libretto has changed significantly in relation to A. Murger's novel in the ratio of comedy and lyric line, at the same time the composer reveals the tragedy of human destiny. The composer, brilliantly mastering the material of life, subordinated his musical drama, first of all, to logic, dressing prosaic events in beautiful sincere feelings and love, colored by a passionate desire to find their place in this complex world dominated by bourgeois moral principles, customs and traditions. there is no place for sincerity of feelings, purity of relations. Heroes of "Bohemia" are able to sacrifice, suffer, enjoy the sun and life. Perhaps, not only with beautiful music, but also with the moral and ethical principles embedded in the work, the opera remains in the context of changing times and on the verge of moral tests for humanity. The music of "Bohemia", like all other operas by G. Puccini, is filled with sincere warmth. The composer worked on the score for eight months, more and more concerned about the fate of the heroes of his future opera, who, despite all the vicissitudes of poverty, lived with bright dreams and hopes. They were not frightened by cold or hunger, and worried only one thing - to find their place in the great and turbulent world of creative bohemia. They were the children of their time and the relationships that then developed in the society they challenged. The heroes of the opera "Bohemia" had their prototypes, they seemed to come from the streets of Paris on the stage. According to the biographer G. Puccini A. Fraccaroli, the composer fell in love with his heroines - Mimi and Mussetta. In these tender and subtle images of youth and love, he found a source of inspiration. Concluding the opera, he openly wrote in one of his letters to Giulio Ricordi: "I cried like a child." We can say that it was in this opera that the personal destiny of the famous composer was reflected. Світова прем’єра цього твору відбулася на сцені Туринського театру Реджо (Teatro Regio di Torino) 1 лютого 1896 року під керуванням 28-річного Артуро Тосканіні, вже досить відомого в музичному світі маестро, блискучого інтерпретатора насамперед музики Ріхарда Вагнера. Despite the very high marks of Puccini's new work by his entourage - musicians and music critics close to the Ricordi publishing house - Bohemia suffered the same annoyance as most operas of composers of the second half of the nineteenth century. And although the opera was not "whistled", but the Turin audience received it quite coolly, which surprised and upset the composer, who did not doubt the success of his new work. The audience was disappointed by the plot of the opera. According to ground music lovers, the plot was very different from the reference standards of the genre, which was based on Shakespeare's passions and no longer authentic texts of German and French historical chronicles. Therefore, fans could not accept such a mundane plot, which in their opinion, which formed the basis of the opera "Bohemia". But very soon theaters began to compete to include this opera in their repertoires. Its premieres in Paris (1898) and Vienna (1903) contributed to the growing popularity of Puccini's work. Bohemia was first staged in Kyiv in 1904. Then there were productions of 1913 and 1958. In 1969 the play was renewed. And then - new productions in 1986 and 1998. Not so long ago, Vitaliy Palchikov staged Bohemia at the Kyiv Opera (Kyiv Municipal Academic Opera and Ballet Theater for Children and Youth). In different years the main parts in Kyiv interpretations were performed by T. Ponomarenko, G. Sholina, K. Radchenko, G. Tsypola, L. Zabilyasta, I. Dats, O. Nagorna, I. Semenenko (Mimi); V. Timokhin, A. Solovyanenko, O. Vostryakov, V. Fedotov, V. Grishko (Rudolf); E. Chavdar, E. Miroshnychenko, M. Stefyuk, L. Semenenko, V. Stepova (Mozetta); M. Vorvulev, B. Puzin, A. Mokrenko, R. Mayboroda, M. Koval, P. Priymak, V. Bazir (Marseille); M. Shostak, O. Zagrebelny, V. Manolov, V. Lupalov (Shonar); V. Pazich, V. Pivovarov, B. Gnid, M. Shopsha, B. Taras, Y. Khomich (Collin); V. Gerasimchuk, V. Lositsky, G. Krasulya (Benoit); O. Chulyuk-Zagray, S. Skubak, S. Matveev (Alcindor); T. Feoktitstov M. Khorunzhiy, M. Shulyak, Y. Khimich (Parpinol). In the new production of the opera "Bohemia", according to the play's directors, the heroes of the opera are in a slightly different time dimension. Their environment was the second half of the twentieth century, which seems to bring modern viewers closer to Puccino's heroes. - It is no coincidence that we chose this work for another joint project with longtime friends from the Italian Embassy and the Italian Institute of Culture in Ukraine, because Giacomo Puccini's opera "Bohemia" is called a "winter fairy tale", - said Director General of Art of the National Opera of Ukraine. artist Petro Chuprina. - This is our holiday gift to all connoisseurs of exquisite opera and, above all, young people, who are increasingly appearing in our auditorium. The main characters of this opera are young people, full of creative inspiration and stormy emotions, sincere and open in their feelings and aspirations. - The Italian-Ukrainian cultural dialogue has many points of contact, but is especially fruitful in the field of opera, as evidenced by our long-standing partnership with the Kyiv Opera House, - said Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Italian Republic to Ukraine David La Cecilia. - Every season we offer a rich program of highly artistic projects, culminating in successful joint productions of operas and ballets, which each time become a decoration of the repertoire of the main music institution of Ukraine. This year's production is the result of a fruitful collaboration between director Italo Nunciata and the main conductor of the theater, Maestro Mykola Dyadyura. They have prepared a first-class line-up of performers, thanks to which the heroes and heroines of one of the most prominent and favorite masterpieces of the world's opera repertoire - Giacomo Puccini's opera "Bohemia" will come to life on the leading stage of Ukraine. During one of the premieres, the grateful Kyiv audience did not want to let the Honored Artists of Ukraine Petro Pryimak, Serhiy Kovnir, Tetiana Ganina, Susanna Chakhoyan, Bohdan Taras, Dmytro Ageyev, theater soloists Dmytro Ivanchenko, Oleksandr Boyko, Yuslan, Ruslan leave the stage for a long time. Gorinya. The success of the play was facilitated by the unusual scenography, created with the help of the most modern video projectors, which were already partially used in the premiere of last season - "The Barber of Seville" (set designer Maria Levitskaya).
Creative young people rent a loft under the roof, wander around the cafes wrapped in scarves and coats, drink wine from local producers. A thought leader wrapped in branded stuff gives vocal lessons, and a novice copywriter falls in love with a handmade girl. The Italian director and masters of the National Opera imagined what Puccini's classic plot would look like in Paris in the 1950s. And Weekend went behind the scenes to make sure that such "Bohemia" will definitely become close and understandable to modern Kyiv. The production is a Ukrainian-Italian project created in collaboration with the Italian Embassy and the Italian Institute of Culture. Directed by Italo Nunciata. Viewers already know him well from a number of performances in the National Opera - it's "Macbeth", "Manon Lescaut", "Love Drink", "Cinderella". Italo NUNCIATE Italo Nunziata told Weekend how the fifties changed Europe, why the choir became one of the main characters in the play, which could provoke the director's stormy emotions during the general run. - We hope to attract more young people to this production, because the plot is about what worries her. The characters have occupations that are understandable and close to the young, they are fascinated by feelings of youth, but dramatic things happen to them. I think this opera is very modern. Verdi's operas, which I staged at this theater a few years ago, were more static. Puccini's plots are definitely operas with more movement, dynamics, alive and lively in the theatrical sense. It seemed to me that the repertoire of the National Opera of Ukraine needed it. We have been preparing a play for almost a month, it was a very intensive process. I have already had to work with some artists on previous productions, other actors are new to me. It is nice to see young people who want to work, to move more on stage, not as is customary in traditional static opera. This is inspiring, because we are trying to bring the opera closer to the present in all aspects. And in terms of drama and theatrical action, and in the time we took as a basis. We want this to be perceived not as a classic of gunpowder, far from us.
Herman Melville, E.M. Forster, Eric Crozier and Benjamin Britten all believed that “Billy Budd” was set at sea. Czech theatre director Daniel Špinar thinks otherwise. His new four-act production of Britten’s psychologically fascinating, demonstrably homoerotic and deeply disturbing drama for the National Theatre in Prague had as much to do with HMS Indomitable as “Madama Butterfly” moved to Mozambique.In the Prologue, Vere sings “Confusion, so much is confusion!” which is a fitting epithet for Špinar’s fundamentally flawed directional concepts. Following similarly spurious interpretations such as Richard Jones’ British boarding school setting in Göteberg, Špinar had no hesitation in manipulating the carefully constructed text to his own gay-fixated and textually inconsistent preconceptions. Nothing to Do With the Text The single set by Lucia Škandiková was a hospital bed in the center of a bare blue-green stage which looked like a cross between a gigantic Tiffany & Co. shoebox and a pastel urinal. Whilst the hospice setting was all very well for Captain Vere’s poignant soliloquies in the Prologue and Epilogue, it made no sense in the central ship-board scenes, which are intended to recreate the squalid and claustrophobic conditions of a British Man o’war in 1797. The sole nautical reference was three model sailing ships carried into Captain Vere’s cabin (which was anything but “narrow”) at the opening of Act two, but these were actually of models of the Thermopylae which was launched more than 70 years after the drama takes place. There was a further small toy yacht carried by six mini-Mozart looking waifs (presumably the powder-monkeys) but this was a Dragon-class sloop first seen in 1929. Specifics in the text were blithely ignored – there were no ropes to haul, no glasses for Vere, Redburn and Flint to toast the King and Dansker doesn’t give Billy anything to eat or drink, making “baby’s” gratitude for unexpected nourishment meaningless. The only additions to the bleak pastel desert were some broken coffins in the second scene of Act two and the sudden appearance of multiple proto-phallic cannons when Billy is interrogated by Vere. Contrary to normal Man o’war ordinance, these armaments are actually pointing inwards towards the protagonists. Not so helpful for firing at the enemy. The most disturbing directional deviation however came in Act four when Billy strips naked and pops into Vere’s bed, creating the titillating expectation of homosexual congress between the handsome young sailor and the philhellene naval captain. Instead, in Jesus-like manner, Vere solemnly washes Billy’s feet, then after the Articles of War are read (which specifically state that Billy is to be “hung from the yardarm”), Vere impales the supine seaman with his ceremonial sword. Possibly Špinar saw this as some kind of symbolic ultimate penetration, but it had nothing to do with the text or 18th century British naval regulations. Costume designer Marek Cpin was no better. The sailors were closer to WW1 Kriegsmarine cadets, Billy looked like a cross between Popeye and Querelle styled by Nautica, Squeak could have doubled for the Artful Dodger and Claggart was a Goth grasshopper sporting an over-sized stylized Order of the Garter star – an unlikely honour for a mere Master-at-Arms. The ultimate absurdity was a powder-wigged Captain Vere dressed in a long-trained powder-blue ensemble bedecked with diamond brooches. His appearance at Captain’s muster could have been Liberace sashaying onto the poop of HMS Pinafore. There is unquestionably a major homosexual theme to this opera, which given the proclivities of the novelist, librettists and composer, should come as no surprise. However, 1951 was hardly a time to caterwaul “I am what I am” and the Sapphic subtext should be as subtle as the behavior of the protagonists is repressed. Špinar has Claggart followed by five handsome body-stockinged dancer/athletes who grope, writhe, roll and climb over each other, and the Master-at-Arms, at every opportunity. It is about as discreet as a drag-show by Divine. During the lengthy “This is our moment” chorus when engagement with the French seems imminent, the dancers put on a Cirque de Soleil show of slow motion pugilism which totally ignores the bustling on-deck directions in the libretto. There was certainly a lot of pectoral pulchritude displayed by the prepossessing Prague lads, but much of Radim Vizváry’s choreography was an unsubtle cribbing of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s human Tarnhelm concept for Guy Cassiers’ “Ring” at La Scala in 2010. But the Music… Fortunately the musical component of the evening was much more satisfactory. The chorus of the Czech National Theater Prague was really outstanding and the tricky cross-rhythm ensemble passages such as “This is our moment” were impressively sung. The multitude of small roles were not especially memorable except for a resonant Redburn by Jiří Brückler and a dulcet-toned Friend by Luboš Skala. The only serious negative was that overall English diction was consistently imprecise. This was particularly noticeable in the rollicking “We’re off to Samoa” couplets. The roles of cabin boy, novice and tenor solo were impressively sung by Jan Petryka who has a real tenore di grazia timbre and technique. “Over the water, over the ocean” was wistfully lyrical. For some inexplicable reason, Špinar had the novice sing Vere’s “Scylla and Charybdis” passage after Claggart’s murder, ending with “it is I whom the devil awaits.” Although emotionally powerful and vocally well sung by Petryka, this makes no dramaturgical sense whatsoever. Admittedly the novice is weak and cowardly but these failings have been skillfully manipulated by Claggart. It is Vere who is wracked with angst and self-loathing for failing to save Billy and until the guileless youth blesses and absolves him, logically believes he will be damned for his pusillanimity. It is also doubtful that an uneducated young novice would be familiar with Greek mythology. Gidon Sak is no stranger to the role of the contemptible Claggart, having enjoyed recent success in the part with Donald Runnicles in Berlin. With a palpable Iago-ish malevolence, Sak’s characerization is a seething mono-dimensional study of evil with an S&M kink. There is no attempt at subservient hypocrisy or ignominious dissimulation. The voice is stronger in the upper register but the deeper tessitura such as the low G natural on “I will destroy you” and the low F-sharp on “Your honour” lacked resonance and projection. American baritone Christopher Bolduc was an agreeable Billy with perhaps a better knowledge of what was going on in Claggart and Vere’s mind than more ingénue interpretations. The voice is not especially large and tended to be slightly overwhelmed in the ensemble sections. “Billy Budd, King of the birds” was far from stentorian, but the closing “Through the port comes the moon-shine astray” scena was beautifully phrased in an intimate lieder-style manner. Despite the louche Liberace look, Slovak tenor Štefan Margita was vocally convincing as Vere. Margita was able to convey the character’s preoccupation with good and evil, rigid regulations and philosophic humanism with understated eloquence. Whilst his English was often quirky with the occasional rolled “r’s” and extended “e’s”, the voice projected well over the large orchestra and there was some refulgent singing in the upper register exemplified by a clarion top B-natural on “leave me.” The Real Captain of the Ship Laurels of the evening however went to young British conductor Christopher Ward and the National Theatre orchestra. This is a maestro who knows how to breathe with the singers and his conducting of Britten’s immensely difficult, kaleidoscopic, sea-sonorous score was translucent and trenchant. There was ebullience, poetry and rhythmic insistency in Ward’s inspired reading and while there may not have been a whiff of salt air on the stage, the orchestra could have come straight from shores of Suffolk. The graduations between atmospheric pianissimi and hefty fortissimi (especially evident in the major/minor triad shifts in the “interrogation scene”) revealed no small degree of virtuosity by the Czech musicians. Strings were seductive and woodwinds chirpy with the first flute being particularly impressive in the obbligato passages during Billy’s final scena. Brass were raw and raspy and the Grand Inquisitor-ish instrumentation of tuba, low strings and contrabassoon before Claggart makes his bogus denunciation of Billy was truly ominous. Neither Melville, Forster or Crozier were well-served by this vexatious and inappropos production, however Britten was in excellent hands on the podium. Ward is a conductor to watch.
