How many operas and
other musical works have been inspired
by the writings of Alexander Pushkin?
The number must be vast and here is
another - one of Rachmaninov’s three
early stage works. With minor parings
and adjustments Rachmaninov used the
whole of Pushkin's drama.
The scenes of the Miserly
Knight flow as a whole. There is little
feeling of set-piece arias linked by
hum-drum. The sense of narrative is
strong as perhaps was to be expected
from the composer’s director role at
the Bolshoi.
The plot. The Baron
is a miser and Albert, his son, lives
in shame of his father's tight-fisted
reputation. There has been a jousting
competition and the Count has had his
helmet damaged. In scene 2 the Baron
visits the crypt of the castle to add
to his treasury of gold: power is wealth
no matter what grief it may have cost.
The damask musical drapes of this part
of the score conjure the subterranean
gloom in tones familiar from the first
movement of the Second Symphony. The
Baron then contemplates his mortality
and fears his thriftless son will exhaust
his treasure when he is in the grave.
Albert asks the Duke to reason with
his father so that he will change his
ways. Things come to a head when Albert
overhears the Baron suspecting Albert
of being out to murder him. Albert challenges
his father to a duel. The Duke, horrified
at this conflict between son and father,
banishes Albert. The Baron is at last
mortified by his absorption in worldly
goods. Burning with shame, he falls
dead.
Neeme Järvi reigns
in isolated supremacy when it comes
to complete cycles of Rachmaninov's
three early operas: we leave out of
the reckoning the shards and shreds
of Mona Vanna recorded on another
Chandos CD. I am guessing that the present
disc is not a one-off event and that
Polyansky will also record the other
two: Aleko and Francesca da
Rimini. If so he will be doughty
competition for Järvi’s set.
This Chandos disc is
a fine entry into the lists. Polyansky,
at one time given to a rather torpid
approach in his Chandos cycle of Glazunov
symphonies, here strikes a better balance.
The Prelude broods and yet there is
a vibrancy in the subservient instrumental
lines. His vocal team, all men (there
are no female roles in this opera) are
uniformly robust. Grivnov is cast from
strength and has one of those lean,
resinous and rock-steady Atlantov-style
heroic Russian voices. Molchanov's more
nasal and wheedling style suits the
caricature Moneylender role.
The writing recalls
Rachmaninov's Second Symphony pretty
frequently and there is also a confidently
strong, occasionally hysterical, Tchaikovskian
presence. The wild-eyed tension rattles
along in terms familiar from the finale
of Tchaikovsky 4. The grim ending of
the opera is typical of the tormented
Tchaikovsky.
Compared with Järvi
on DG this Chandos version has a greater
aural presence and grip; not that there
is much between the two. True to form,
Järvi is quicker at 58:35 and he
has a vocal team as good as Polyansky's.
They are Sergei Aleksashkin (Baron),
Sergei Larin (Albert), Vladimir Chernov
(Duke), Ian Caley (moneylender) and
Anatoli Kotscherga (servant).
If you wanted to explore
Rachmaninov's trio of operas thoroughly
you would not be at much of a disadvantage
if you moved promptly to pick up the
bargain price DG-Universal Trio set.
They are on 477 041-2 minus librettos
or as a full price single CD of The
Miserly Knight with libretto
on 453 454-2. In this Trio box all the
operas are offered at a very attractive
price. The only substantial demerit
in the Järvi box option is the
omission of the librettos. Chandos,
on the other hand, do their usual Cadillac
of a job by providing plenty of context
notes and the full sung libretto is
in Cyrillic. It’s a shame that its only
in Cyrillic although of course there
are parallel translations into German
and English. A transliteration would
have been better for non-Russian speakers.
The DG single discs give the transliterated
text rather than the Cyrillic which,
after all, is impenetrable for the most
westerners. DG also give English, French
and German translations.
DG also score negligibly
by providing four tracks just like the
Chandos but each is indexed with a total
of eighteen index entries for the whole
work as against Chandos’s bare four
tracks. It's not much of an advantage
because so few of us have machines with
the facility to move around index entries.
If you demand the full
package with complete text and the current
ultimate in sound quality this is the
version for you. Anything less and you
would be well advised to go for the
superbly characterised and dramatised
DG set.
Rob Barnett
Russian State Symphony Orchestra/Valeri
Polyansky 
