A couple of years ago I
reviewed a Naxos release on CD of a performance of
Kitezh from Cagliari. Generally I gave it a warm welcome as an uncut
rendition of a very lengthy score while noting some deficiencies in the
singing. I also lamented the lack of a text and translation, but noted that
the same performance was also available on DVD where the provision of
subtitles would be a welcome aid to comprehension for non-Russian-speaking
viewers. I never saw the production which was the subject of the DVD
release, but must now welcome this Blu-Ray release of a Netherlands Opera
production which is similarly uncut. The old CD release of the Harry Kupfer
production conducted by Fedoseyev was subjected to barbarous hacking. It
gives us a further chance to encounter what is one of
Rimsky-Korsakov’s most superlative scores.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s original scenario sets the action in
mediaeval Russia, combining two folk tales into a highly symbolic legend.
Dmitri Tcherniakov, the director of this production, contends in a
documentary provided as an extra to this Blu-Ray that the result - relying
as it does on a familiarity with Russian mediaeval history - is likely to be
confusing for modern audiences. Well, up to a point: we understand
Boris
Godunov or
Khovanschina well enough with a minimal background in
Russian history. By updating the action to an unspecified and brutal
twentieth or twenty-first century war he certainly succeeds in communicating
immediately with an audience. The results - while they may not be what
Rimsky originally had in mind - are both convincing and riveting in dramatic
terms. In fact he does not alter the original scenario to any great extent,
although the angle of approach is very different.
The heroine Fevronia remains a simple peasant girl with an affinity
for nature, who becomes caught up in the events of an invasion. In the
original she falls in love with the local Prince, but their wedding is
interrupted by war and her betrothed is killed in battle. She prays for
deliverance and the city of Kitezh is rendered invisible. At the end she is
reunited with her betrothed in the invisible city, which appears even in the
original to be a sort of after-life. In this production she dies following
the invasion; the inhabitants of the city commit mass suicide. Then in a
near-death experience she seems to see herself and her betrothed about to
undergo their wedding ceremony. In the end we return to her body lying dead
in the forest. This is not in fact a betrayal of Rimsky’s conclusion,
which has surprisingly downbeat and
pianissimo final bars as the
joyful peals of bells fade away. Rimsky, with his sympathies for the
revolutionaries of 1905, would not in any event have accepted
unquestioningly the consolations of religious mysticism implied in
Fevronia’s vision. It is clear here that the near-death experience is
an illusion, because her vision is that of a peasant girl of limited
imagination. The wedding table is not that of a prince, but of a small
farmer; the birds of paradise are old women of the village; and so on. The
result is touching and very effective.
The portrayal of war and invasion is brutal and crude in the
extreme, and all the more shocking for that. The two Tartar leaders, in the
original a pair of cardboard villains, are here shown as a local warlord and
his bodyguard, both brutal in their own way but distinct and recognisable
characters. One could perhaps have done without the ‘heavy’
forcing Fevronia to give him oral sex, but these things unfortunately do
happen in modern warfare. What makes this production so effective is the
emphasis throughout on realism; with the exception of the near-death
experience these are very real things in a very real world. In the opening
scene Fevronia is seen in her farmstead in the forest, and even the
cornstalks are waving in the breeze. The blood that is scattered across the
stage seems all too real, and Fevronia’s love for her
‘prince’ is palpable from the start; she has his shirt off him
in minutes. All this may sound like the sort of production that sends many
viewers screaming for the hills as an example of the betrayal of the
composer’s intentions. God knows there are enough mindless examples of
that sort about. This however is something different, something very
serious, and something much better. While remaining true to the spirit and
letter of Rimsky-Korsakov’s music, this is a re-imagining of the score
which really works and grips the viewer throughout.
Then, there’s the music. The Cagliari production suffered
considerably from a well-prepared but smallish orchestra, and the Mariinsky
live performance on a Philips CD set sounds very boxy with lots of intrusive
stage noise especially in Act Two. Here we have some stage noise, but we can
see what is causing it; and the orchestral playing simply leaves its rivals
lying in the dust. Passages which are muffled or indistinct in the other two
recordings come across superbly here. The strings, full and romantic in
tone, play the glorious melodies with ecstasy; and Marc Albrecht paces the
score with understanding and passion, making one realise how advanced the
supposedly ‘conservative’ Rimsky-Korsakov - at the end of his
career - could be when he had something to get his teeth into. Sections of
Fevronia’s final vision even pre-echo the final scenes of
Strauss’s
Die Frau ohne Schatten. In short, this is quite
simply the best recording of the music of this opera to be had in any
medium.
The singing doesn’t let the side down, either. In the Cagliari
recording Tatiana Monogarova was a superb Fevronia, but Svetlana Ignatovich
is pretty well her equal, and she is a marvellous actress to boot. Galina
Gorchakova on the Mariinsky set has simply too heavyweight a voice to be
convincing as a young virginal maiden. The Cagliari set was badly
compromised by an inadequate Prince Vsevolod, but here Maxim Aksenov is far
superior. He may not have the largest of voices - one could imagine a bit
more sheer volume in places - but he looks convincing as an anorak-clad
student type, and is one of the few opera singers whom one could imagine
stripped to the waist without a qualm; just as well, since he spends a good
part of his opening scene in that state. John Daszak (of Ukrainian
parentage) has a larger voice and his Grishka Kuterma is a frightening study
in psychological disintegration. He goes from drunken bully to traitor
terrified of pain, and finally into total madness when he tries to strangle
Fevronia and leave her alone in the woods. Subtitles also make the viewer
fully aware of the modern tone of the dialogue here, as Kuterma explains to
Fevronia how he has lost his faith and her innocent incomprehension of this.
Vladimir Vaneev is a world-weary Prince Yuri, and oddly in a Russian
bass his low notes are not his strongest feature; but he conveys a
sympathetic and slightly bumbling character. Alexey Markov as Fyodor has a
nicely resonant baritone - far superior to his Cagliari counterpart - and
his make-up after the invaders have gouged out his eyes is horrifyingly
realistic. Gennady Bezzubenkov is however past his best as the
ballad-singing gusli player, here sporting a guitar which he conspicuously
fails to play at moments when the instrument is heard in the orchestra.
Vladimir Ognovenko, another veteran, makes a lecherous warlord, and still
has plenty of voice to spare; as his brutal ‘minder’ Ante
Jerkunica looks thoroughly unpleasant in his T-shirt with bulging muscles,
and he sings well too. Jennifer Check and Margarita Nekrasova sing
beautifully as the two birds. The chorus are superb throughout, with volume
and tone to spare, lots of subtlety, and their acting displays the results
of meticulous rehearsal, as witnessed in the extra documentary.
The production is credited in the booklet as a co-production with La
Scala and the Liceu, so is presumably to be seen there as well. Lucky Milan
and Barcelona. The extra documentary features interviews with many of the
participants, and shows how seriously all concerned took the undertaking.
This is just as well, since the booklet contains nothing about the
production itself, just an essay on the genesis of the work by Marina
Frolova-Walker and a synopsis by the director
Dmitri Tcherniakov which doesn’t in fact reflect what he has
created onstage. The director was also responsible for the set and costume
designs, and achieves a sense of unity of purpose which helps the sense of
engagement.
On musical grounds alone this new DVD and Blu-Ray must supersede the
worthy but ultimately inferior Cagliari production on Naxos. Since there are
disgracefully no other alternatives in the video medium, this will be the
choice of all those who rightly want to experience the work in dramatic form
and with the benefit of subtitles. Even were there a plethora of other
productions around, this would still merit a place at the top of any list.
The work
should also be on any list; it is simply one of
Rimsky-Korsakov’s greatest scores, and its neglect remains scandalous.
I can’t find, for example, evidence that the work has ever been
performed onstage in the UK.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
