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Music
Modest
Musorgsky
Company
English National Opera
Conductor
Oleg Caetani
Director
Francesca
Zambello
Director
Julie Pevzner
Design
Alison Chitty
Lighting
Paul Pyant
Choreographer
Nicola Bowie
Translation
Carol
Borah Palca
Performers
Prince
Ivan
Khovansky
Willard W White
Marfa
Jill Grove
Prince
Andrey Khovansky
Tom Randle
Prince
Vasily
Golitsyn
David Rendall
Shaklovity
Pavlo Hunka
Dosifey
John
Tomlinson
Susanna
Elizabeth
Sikora
Scribe
Robin
Leggate
Emma
Claire Weston
Kuzka
Andrew Rees
First
Soldier
Paul
Napier-Burrows
Second
Soldier
Christopher
Ross
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London
Coliseum
English
National Opera
23
January - 13 February 2003 |
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Khovanshchina
is an opera fraught with problems.
The first is what version
to perform it in. Musorgsky
did not live to orchestrate
any but a small part of it,
so it was initially orchestrated
and finished off for performance
by his friend Rimsky-Korsakov.
By the time Rimsky came to
do this, as he did for a number
of the works of his dead or
dying friends, his views had
shifted from his early nationalist
radicalism to a much lusher
palette, so history and its
critics has dealt rather scornfully
with his completions and refinements
of the many works to which
he applied his new ideas.
Perhaps history has misjudged
Rimsky's good intentions,
so in the case of Khovanshchina
more hands have been involved
including Stravinsky, Ravel
and, more recently, Shostakovich
who did his best to return
to what seems to have been
Musorgsky's style and intentions.
His edition has now become
the standard performing edition,
but, given his contribution,
the opera should really be
billed as by Musorgsky and
Shostakovich.
The second problem is arguably
harder to overcome. Khovanshchina,
in a sense, has no real story,
it is more an evocation of
a difficult transitional time
in the epic history of Russia:
the period of Peter the Great's
transformations of Russian
governance and society, the
time of the symbolic of old
Russia represented by Moscow
to the new, more forward-seeking,
Western-looking Russia symbolized
by Peter's new city St. Petersburg.
Old interests, beliefs and
customs battled with new ideas
and in between the people
were caught in the transfer
with frequent disastrous consequences.
This would be a gripping historical
narrative, but in opera it
needs some more precise focus
to allow the grander drama
to emerge from the rather
anonymous sweep of history.
It also needs some partisanship;
there need to be parties with
whom the audience, through
the music, must sympathise
or despise. It needs characters
and actions, and situations
in which they find themselves.
Khovanshchina
has characters and they are
caught up in the sweep, but
Musorgksy's pursuit of realism
made him make the on-looking
Russian people (the chorus)
almost more prominent than
the central characters whose
downfall comes more from the
tide of history being against
them than any particular actions
they take. Each character
is a representative of his
class or group. Only Dosifey,
the Old Believer priest turns
out to have been an aristocrat
who offers Golitsyn and Khovansky
a way forward from their current
positions.
Somehow, despite these reservations
Khovanshchina
emerges as a mighty work,
and despite its nearly four
hours it is enthralling theatrical
experience. This was brilliantly
displayed in the superb English
National Opera production,
which first appeared in 1994
but which was revived on 23
January 2003.
The production encourages
'larger-than-lifeness', and
one example of this was the
chorus. It is on top form,
and despite the current pressures
to reduce its size and its
valiant efforts to stave off
the artistically barbaric
cuts with which it has been
threatened, its forgot these
in a wonderful display of
choral power, acting and theatrical
presence. Musorgsky intended
the people to be at the centre
of the drama and this chorus
certainly showed they were.
The orchestra also sounded
as good as I have heard for
a while. Under the sensitive,
and much applauded (on stage,
in pit and auditorium), baton
of Oleg Caetani the drama
evolved with measured pace
articulated by some beautiful
orchestral playing.
Francesca Zambello's original
production was supervised
again by her and Julia Pevzner,
and the passage of time shows
this production to be undiminished.
The most striking performance
of the evening was by John
Tomlinson as Dosifey, the
leader of the Old Believers.
Simultaneously compassionate
and commanding, he strides
around the stage with his
magnificent beard and flowing
robes adding majesty to his
appearances. But as always
with Tomlinson he has the
voice to match the appearance.
Clear diction and ringing
tones made his performance
focus the drama when he was
on stage, and Musorgsky's
fondness for folk-like melodic
phrases seemed apt coming
from Tomlinson's Dosifey (a
role much associated with
Chaliapin) Old Believer. He
represents a die-hard reactionary
move against changes, but
he acts not from self-interest
but from religious conviction.
Unlike Moses he is forced
to lead his people to an unpromised
land where they do not want
to go, and as such a tragic
figure he emerges as a great
operatic creation wonderfully
portrayed by John Tomlinson.
By contrast, but hardly less
good were Willard White as
Prince Khovansky and David
Rendall as Prince Vasily Golitsyn.
Both also are under threat
from the emerging new order,
though their responses are
quite different. Golitsyn
is an out-and-out aristocrat
who despite having adopted
Western manners and philosophies
has not more respect for the
Russian people than his more
bullish, old-guard counterpart
Khovansky a powerful boyars
whose hold on power was the
most threatened by Peter the
Great's new order. Golitsyn
is a strangely ambivalent
character, who despite his
modernity still has his fortune
told by archaic magical means
(a superbly atmospheric scene
in this production) by the
Old Believer Marfa. He gloomy
predictions leads to him to
punish the messenger, but
he cannot forget the message.
David Rendall's stocky tenor
somehow seems just right for
the would-be dandy who cannot
shake off his unconscious
roots in a past which his
intellectual mind wants to
dismiss. His is an anxious
role that ends in exile, and
the sense of frustration and
doom runs throughout Rendall's
apt portrayal.
Willard's White's old boyar
Khovansky is a brutal decadent,
a kind of survivor from the
grosser days of ancient Rome.
Lust, greed and an familiarity
with absolute power, whose
retention he will stop at
nothing to achieve, all conspire
to make him a bad man on a
big scale. Ironically Musorgsky
should have made us side with
the new brooms of Peter who
is sweeping away Khovansky
and his kind, but he does
not, and in the end the Old
Believers, who are the acceptable
face of the old world, are
just as much persecuted as
Khovansky. Throughout the
opera Musorgsky's realism
led to a moral nihilism, a
sense that new ideas will
not improve the lot of anyone.
From some points of view this
might mean our interpretation
of Khovansky's immorality
and brutality was softened.
But somehow both Musorgsky
and White's interpretation
of the role make Khovansky
more than just a historical
phase. White with his wonderful
diction and stage-presence
injects a continual sense
of menace into the role, and
despite his nervous fingering
of his bath-towel in the orgy
scene he is enjoying before
he is murdered by Peter's
ominous agent Shaklovity,
he never lets the audience
doubt his political realism
and determination to go down
fighting for the world he
has appallingly enjoyed.
Shaklovity is another ambivalent
character. As Peter's lieutenant
he is staunch in his pursuit
of non-reformers. He has an
evangelical mission, perhaps
adopted however for opportunistic
reasons. But in a moment of
reflection he laments the
chaos the changes have brought
in their wake, and the agony
of the new world's emergence
from the old. He is strongly
(vocally and visually) presented
on stage by Pavlo Hunka as
a typical hard-line henchman
with resonances from Berlin
to the Kremlin in the twentieth
century.
Jill Grove's portrayal of
the hapless Marfa, a typical
figure from ancient Russia,
who is both a fortune-teller
and much persecuted philanthrope,
captures both Marfa's perpetual
defensive and her compassion.
Her gravelly voice prevents
Marfa's seeming to be too
young or one of the fly-by-nights
such as Emma (sung by Claire
Weston) in the first scene.
As the only major female role
in this primarily male epic
Jill Grove makes Marfa's presence
felt compellingly throughout
the opera not only as herself
but the for down-trodden,
ill-fated group she represents.
This production, both as a
spectacle and as a musical
experience must be seen and
heard. It is the English National
Opera at its best with an
intelligent and forceful production
allowing some superb portrayals
of larger-than-life characters
by singing actors rather than
just opera-singers. Khovanshchina
is not that often staged,
so this should lend urgency
to one's desire to see this
very striking performance.
Roderick
Swanston |
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