It was as splendid as the box office worker promised! I did thoroughly enjoy seeing The Tsar’s Bride at the Royal Opera House. The production was stylish – lots of arresting stage pictures and subtle, effective details. Director Paul Curran transported the story from the 1500s to Putin’s Russia, so the Tsar’s henchmen were portrayed as mafiosi. For me, the modern-day setting certainly clarified the issues of fear and power so central to this plot. Most of the singers were from the former eastern Bloc and had those distinctive Slavic cheekbones. They and the sets gave the performance a Russian flavor. You believed you were in modern day Moscow.
Until the last act, that is, which takes place immediately after the wedding. Then the production suddenly looked (but did not sound) very British. All the female wedding guests were wearing extravagant hats – à la the recent Royal Wedding – and the lighting and costume made the heroine Marfa resemble a pre-Raphaelite painting.
The character Lyubasha’s melancholy song in Act 1 was one of the opera’s most stunning moments. The aria is practically unaccompanied; no orchestral accompaniment at all during the verses, and only a few chords sound between them. Mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova sang it so expressively, that it was one of those wonderful occasions in the theatre when hundreds and hundreds of people were captivated and absolutely still.
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At intermission, the young man next to me asked, “Do you like it?”
“Oh yes, very much. Do you?”
“Yes, but I am Russian.”
At the end of the performance he commented, “It’s a tragedy.”
“Russians seem to like tragedy,” I remarked.
“Yes, it’s our national behavior.”
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