Slava! Rimsky-Korsakov’s  Sadko: (Concert Performance)  Mariinsky Theatre Soloists, orchestra and  chorus  Valery Gergiev (conductor); Palau de la Música de Valencia, 11. 11. 2006, Valencia, Spain (NP)

 

 

 

Returning to Valencia after some years since their last appearance with Boris Godunov, the Mariinsky Orchestra, Choir and soloists offered a concert performance of Rimsky's rarity Sadko, under the Valery Gergiev´s direction last Saturday. Sadko was a deliberate choice, planned as a celebratory act for the America’s Cup, which will take place in Valencia next year, since its plot is about the sea and sailing.

 

The seven tableaux opera describes the epic journey of Sadko, a sea-faring minstrel from Novgorod, his wife Libava and their encounters with Volkhova, a sea Princess and her parents the Tsar and Tsarina of the Sea. Travelling on his ship "Falcon", Sadko meets visiting foreign merchants from India, Scandinavia and Italy all singing of the magic of their own lands in order to lure him there. In the seventh tableau Sadko, reunited with his wife, believes his journey to be a dream, until he sees his fleet of ships coming up the newly created river Volkhova. He realises that the sea Princess has transformed herself into the river to create a gateway between Novgorod and the sea and the opera ends as Sadko leads a hymn of praise to the Princess while everyone else rejoices at their good fortune

Sadko was first performed in Moscow in 1898 but was neglected in most of Europe’s theatres until Gergiev’s performance in 1993 made it more popular. Even so, there have been few subsequent productions perhaps because of the opera's three-hour duration and its difficult stage requirements in which the audience has to be transported between a riverless Novgorod to an undersea kingdom and then back again - to a revitalised city complete with expansive waterway.

The restrictions of Palau de la Música (a different hall entirely to Valencia's newly opened opera house, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia) were the reason for this concert version. The soloists made up for the lack of mobility on the stage with outstandingly expressive strength and the chorus which remained seated during the entire performance, integrated dynamically into the whole. Gergiev´s conducting was characterized by a rich tonal palette of colourful sound effects, reproducing perfectly all of the typical accents of Russian folklore and Rimsky's well-known portrayals of the sea's differing moods.

Mikhail Vishniak gave a masterly rendition as Sadko the main character; his voice covered both lyric and the heroic passages with imposing expression and technique. The soprano Irma Gigolashvili (Volkhova) was extremely expressive through the the second scene’s demands for vocal flexibility and with the Lullaby’s bright lyric arches in the last tableau. Nadezhda Vasilieva´s execution of Néjata ( a woman from from Kiev) was a bit irregular between the middle and low registers but Marianna Tarasova stamped a highly dramatic quality on the role Lubava Buslayevna. Even the secondary roles were sung admirably especially in the case of the two buffoons, Duda (Grigori Karasev) and Sopiel (Andrei Popov), who showed remarkable theatrical skills and perfect coordination in the duos.

But the opera’s most outstanding aspect was the Mariinsky Theatre’s excellent teamwork. This solid and well-established company offered a wonderfully coherent interpretation of the work typical of their usual high standards of performance. This was exactly the impression that ran through the whole production: miles away from today's diva temperament and from last-minute thrown - together operas, we had before us an admirable performance in the sum of cooperative effort delivered an extraordinary result.

“Slava!”, the opera’s most repeated exclamation, was indeed the best word to describe this exceptional event.

 

 

 

 

Nieves Pascual