Prokofiev made a great opera based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace,
a work that is performed every now and then, though it has not
become a standard, partly due to the horrifying costs in assembling
a cast for the more than seventy roles. To my knowledge no-one
else has essayed the same thing and when this recording of David
Carlson’s setting of the other great epic by Tolstoy arrived I
assumed that it was another first. But I was proved wrong. In
1978 British composer Iain Hamilton
(1922-2000) finished an opera in three acts, commissioned by the
English National Opera and premiered there in 1981. I don’t know
if anything from it has ever been recorded and would be interested
if someone knows otherwise. Interestingly the librettist for David
Carlson’s opera, Colin Graham, directed Hamilton’s opera at the
ENO.
One central problem
with turning a novel into an opera libretto is the need to condense
the plot, eliminate characters, maybe leave out certain episodes
altogether and in the process also lose important messages in
the original. Two famous films of Anna Karenina, starring
Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh respectively, as well as Hamilton’s
operatic version omitted the character Levin, who in fact is
Tolstoy’s alter ego and whose Credo becomes the
closing lines in Graham’s libretto:
Death may destroy
us
And all that we achieve.
But if we learn to know ourselves,
And love each other,
Then there is life in every blade of grass,
In every smile and tear!
This is a skilful
and poetic condensation of Levin’s insight which he puts into
words in the final chapter of the novel. It also gives David
Carlson the foundation for a truly jubilant orchestral finale
with bells, brass and soaring strings in the vein of Tchaikovsky’s
1812, a composition to which there is also a thematic
link in this opera since Carlson employs the same liturgical
hymn that Tchaikovsky quotes at the beginning of 1812,
as his most important leitmotif. The whole opera is tightly
constructed with close connections between the different themes.
Thus Vronsky’s theme is derived from the second half of Anna’s
theme. The music is basically tonal and even though it pours
forth in a continuous flow there are many passages where it
develops into solos and various kinds of ensembles. The orchestration
is flexible and superbly adapted to the dramatic or psychological
situations and Carlson’s sense for rhythmic variation makes
the score wonderfully alive.
The opera is divided
in two acts, each of them is in turn divided in three parts
and, apart from Part 3 of the first act, each part is divided
in three scenes. Between the three parts of act II there are
short orchestral interludes and the scenes and parts are generally
seamlessly connected, visually separated through various lighting
effects, described in the exhaustive libretto. The prologue
of the opera, playing at the railway station in Moscow, is a
3˝-minute-long orchestral prelude where the action is mimed.
In the absence of the visual images it is a powerful, graphic
and evocative opening to the proceedings, and the tension that
is built up is retained throughout the performance.
The ball scene (act
I, part 1, scene 2) is rhythmically energetic, motoric, depicting
frustration rather than joy and the mazurka becomes a dance
macabre. Fanfares introduce the first scene of part 3, where
the party is at the races, and the horses are galloping in the
orchestra. But these are external utterances; at the end of
the scene, where Anna reveals to her husband that she loves
Vronsky, and in the second scene, with Anna’s death vision,
the music follows the inner development so intimately. I could
point out many instances where the orchestra is in the midst
of the action but I think that these isolated examples will
give a fairly vivid picture of the opera. It takes some time
before the recitative develops into something like an aria and
that is in the middle of the first scene of part 1 in act I
where Anna sings I remember, when he first saw you. From
then on the score is a wealth of grateful vocal utterances,
even though they are not necessarily ‘arias’ that can be extracted
from the entirety. Definite highlights are found in the third
scene of Part 2 with the meeting between Anna and Vronsky at
Karenin’s summer house: Anna’s monologue before Vronsky enters,
her Can life be so kind, leading up to the Puccinian
phrase Our love together? and then to the inevitable
love duet where they sing in unison My heart was dying and
only came to life / When I was dancing in your arms. And
there are riches to come in the following scenes as well.
This is a strong score in every respect and it mediates
the essentials of Tolstoy’s novel – and Colin Graham’s masterly
libretto – to stunning effect.
Recorded live during
performances in St Louis in June 2007 the recording catches
the proceedings well. The voices seem a bit distant but no more
so than can be expected in the opera house. There are stage
noises, hardly disturbing since they also contribute to the
sense of actually being there.
The cast is uniformly
excellent with Kelly Kaduce an impressive Anna Karenina, radiant
and expressive. Christian Van Horn’s dark bass-baritone contrasts
well against Robert Gierlach’s brighter Vronsky. The lyrical
Sarah Coburn is a fine Kitty and the two tenors, William Joyner
and Brandon Jovanovich, as Stiva and Levin, are excellent. The
legendary Met star Rosalind Elias, 78 at the time of recording,
has retained much of the rounded powerful tone from her heydays,
as can be heard in her song in the Epilogue.
This is a modern
opera that should be accessible to a wide audience, not only
listeners with an inclination towards contemporary music. Tolstoy’s
novel is by many regarded as one of the best and most perfectly
constructed works ever written and this condensation into an
apprehensible opera could very well become a modern classic.
Göran Forsling
Kelly Kaduce (soprano)
–Anna Karenina; Christine Abraham (mezzo-soprano) – Dolly; William
Joyner (tenor) – Stiva; Brandon Jovanovich (tenor) – Levin; Josepha
Gayer (mezzo-soprano) – Betsy; Robert Gierlach (baritone) – Vronsky;
Sarah Coburn (soprano) – Kitty; Nicholas Pallesen (baritone) – Prince
Yashvin; Dorothy Byrne (mezzo-soprano) – Countess Lydia Ivanovna;
Christian Van Horn (bass-baritone) – Karenin; Rosalind Elias (mezzo-soprano)
– Agafia Mikhailovna; David Tate (spoken role) – Seriosha; Kimberly
Wibbenmeyer (mezzo-soprano) – Annushka; Mike Dowdy (spoken role)
– A doctor; Brad Lewandowsky (spoken role) – Mikhail; Opera Theatre
of Saint Louis, The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra/Stewart Robertson
