Petr Pospelov. "Golden Mask 2000". Part II: Opera and operetta

"Golden mask-2000". Part II: Opera and operetta
Petr Pospelov

Publication date: April 7, 2000

Italics is not mine

The representative musical part of the festival inspired hope for a rich competitive intrigue:

“The musical part of the current “Mask” turned out to be more fruitful than in previous years, both in quantity and in repertoire scope. The playbill for the opera nomination includes 8 performances (of which only 3 are Moscow), plus Helikon’s opera triptych “Voices of the Invisible” in section "Novation", under the department "Operetta/musical" - 3 performances "from the provinces". It was such an interesting season. It does not seem unfair that the "Masks" program does not include performances of the Bolshoi Theater and "Moscow Operetta" - a barren creative situation is obvious But the 1998/99 season was marked by a colossal creative outburst for the Ural-Siberian region: Ekaterinburg's "Mazepa", Novosibirsk's "Young David", Krasnoyarsk's "Daughter of the Regiment" plus two musicals - from Ekaterinburg ("The Devil and the Virgin") and Krasnoyarsk ( "Incognito from St. Petersburg") and operetta from Novouralsk ("Ah, High Society")." (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

“Looking at this list is a joy (the art of opera has flourished here!)” (Larisa Dolgacheva, “Culture”)

Opera

In this section of the competition, the priorities of the critics were clear in advance:

“The clear leader of the festival is Young David by Yekaterinburg composer Vladimir Kobekin, the only major contemporary opera nominated for the Golden Mask this season.” (Yaroslav Sedov, “Results”)

However, from the point of view of other critics, the leader was not alone:

“Among the current opera nominees for “Mask,” there are two undisputed leaders. These are Novosibirsk’s “Young David” and “Semyon Kotko” from the Mariinsky Theater. The latter, due to status reasons, still has a better chance of winning the award in the “Best Performance” category.” (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

Let's look at the leaders in order:

“Vladimir Kobekin’s opera “Young David” (1997) based on the Old Testament libretto by Alexei Parin was written in a minimalist technique, but with great reverence for the old masters, and above all Bach. Some may think that this is more of an oratorio rather than opera (by the way, the author himself believes that “the time of opera has passed.”) The more difficult were the tasks facing the directors. Director Dmitry Chernyakov and set designer Igor Grinevich managed to create a performance that was modern in spirit, freely operating with European schemes and thus profitable different from the usual routine in provincial theaters. In terms of genre, this is closest to the symbolist-mysterical drama. And if the director, translating music and words into action, thinks in abstract, metaphysical categories, then the artist contradicts him with excessive “materiality”, the materiality of visual comments. Probably , for the first time in the history of the Russian opera house, the audience was placed at the back of the stage, facing the auditorium - the Novosibirsk theater is considered the largest among its brothers, so it is natural that in Moscow the performance was staged at the Army Theater. The orchestra of the Novosibirsk theater under the direction of Alexey Lyudmilin, the choir of Vyacheslav Podelsky and soloists (primarily Valery Gilmanov - King Saul, Liliya Ustyuzhanina - Jonathan and Olga Babkina - Michal) performed the score, which was unusual for an opera ensemble, with high quality." (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

"Director Dmitry Chernikov invented non-trivial circumstances for the action: a male choir behind the backs of the audience; an orchestra with a conductor in the right corner of the stage; in the center of a backdrop drawn into squares in the spirit of Mondrian - a video screen broadcasting the lips of the Prophet; and on the empty proscenium - soloists and a slightly music hall mimance extras. The dramaturgy is tied exclusively to music. The ancient director's scheme of dispassionate choral commentary is balanced by the beautiful archaism of ancient Russian prosody. The characters are completely devoid of psychologism. The orchestral language at times resembles Wagner, at times - Stravinsky. The integrity of the sound text, pleasant for the end of the 20th century, appeals to contemplation, and not analytics, to hearing subtle matters." (Elena Cheremnykh, Kommersant)

" The music of Vladimir Kobekin, written to the biblical libretto by Alexei Parin, is sophisticated, programmatically static and lives in continuous Brownian motion within cleverly defined modal trajectories. The direction of Dmitry Chernyakov listens to the music and extracts similar beauty from the air, light and mise-en-scène. The aesthetics of the performance, as well as the music , is extremely complete and hermetic; such a work is an honor to Novosibirsk, where the production came from. And yet on the capital’s stage it seems sluggish: either the original components have been slightly shifted (in Novosibirsk, I testify, space and sound played better), or the conductor Alexey Lyudmilin was a little “lucky”, or, most likely, “Young David” suits the provincial rhythm (it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Siberian or a German city), and he blissfully avoids the metropolitan aggression of self-affirmation.” (Petr Pospelov, Izvestia)

“Moscow, not spoiled by the opera “fresh”, felt in “Young David” not only a breakthrough in publicity, but also a clear prick of pride - there is no such easy contact with modernity on our opera stage.” (Elena Cheremnykh, Kommersant)

“There is a hunger for modern opera in Russia. So the appearance of “Young David” among the canonized opera hits was very opportune. Chernyakov created a metaphorical and conceptual performance in which objects of the material world are transformed into multi-layered symbols, genres and media, microphone and live sound are mixed , the natural behavior of a public theater and the pompous statuesque quality of a mystery play." (Gulara Sadikh-zadeh, “News Time”)

“The abundance of theatrical effects is stunning. The Prophet Samuel does not appear to the eye: when he sings, the mouth of the performer of this part is projected onto a screen stretched across the entire stage. The advance of the Philistines is indicated by a wall of light at the edge of the stage, behind which countless hordes can be seen.” (Yaroslav Sedov, “Results”)

Pavel Rudnev (Nezavisimaya Gazeta) did not predict “David” to be the winner, but thought this:

“The Critics’ Prize will almost certainly go to the performance “Young David” by Dmitry Chernyakov - that rare case when an opera performance brought together not only the entire company of musical criticism, but also almost the entire regiment of drama specialists. And not one of them left disappointed.”

Pavel Rudnev did not count everyone: the critic Valery Kichin (Izvestia) left just disappointed, having not found his place “in the disintegrated space of “Young David”: the loose vocals and complete lack of diction of the soloists here make the very existence of the libretto meaningless, making for a strange spectacle formal: the palisade of extras is bouncing, huge caterpillar lips are squelching on the movie screen, and no one knows why the audience needs to sit on stage if there is a hall adapted for this (seating arrangements with the risk of breaking legs delayed the start of the show for almost an hour). "The search in general, without a compass and meaning, is speculative, devoid of an emotional beginning. During the intermission, half of the audience left the performance. Voting with your feet is the only opportunity to resist the theater, which does not need the audience at all. Reciprocal courtesy."

Critics wrote about the second leader of the opera competition:

“In Semyon Kotko, director Yuri Alexandrov managed to remove all Soviet relevance and make a symbolic performance about the eternal problems of war, peace and man. Alas, for some technical reasons, the theater capital will not have to get acquainted with this performance; the jury rated it according to its place of registration even before the festival starts. " (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

For the same reason, the Mariinsky Theater performance did not receive wide publicity in the Moscow press - however, many critics saw it in St. Petersburg.

“No doubt, “Kotko” is one of the best works of Alexandrov the director. In his performances, Alexandrov, like a good resonator, captures fluctuations in the mood of society. Perhaps this is the most valuable quality of his talent. He knows exactly what kind of theater is in demand today. “Kotko "In this sense, it was no exception: a pathetic, strong, gloomy performance, in the spirit of dystopias and urban nightmares, with bright acting performances." (Gulara Sadikh-zadeh, “News Time”)

“But this is not a fashionable backhand, the past here is imbued with a complex mixture of pain, love and sarcasm.” (Larisa Dolgacheva, "Culture")

The jury's verdict put everything in its place:

“As expected, all the main “Masks” were “ripped off” by the Mariinsky Theater with their “Semyon Kotko”, which theater Moscow never saw - the best performance in all respects last season participated in the competition, so to speak, in absentia. Probably this is not "It's good. It would be more logical if only those performances and personalities who physically come to the festival would qualify for awards. " (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

Other critics also raised the topic of absentee participation:

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to once and for all establish a unified and binding festival regulation for everyone: either its participant shows his performance in Moscow, or does not participate at all. It’s strange when the jury goes to St. Petersburg and the main “Mask” goes to a Mariinsky Theater production that is unknown to anyone in Moscow . This exceptional theater is constantly unable to come to the "Mask" - it is busy with more important tours, and the Bolshoi Theater stubbornly refuses to give its competitors its stage - it understands that it cannot stand comparison. That's all true. But then the meaning of the very concept: a festival is lost. It turns out that it - not for the public, but exclusively for the process. It turns out that there are good theaters and there are incredibly outstanding ones. The situation, in my opinion, is humiliating for everyone - for the public deceived in their expectations, for the jury, the festival and all its participants, of which some are Soviet traditions are based on canned food, while for others there is a special buffet." (Valery Kichin, Izvestia)

“For the third year in a row, “The Mask” (and with it Moscow) has put up with the absence of Mariinsky productions that really compete and no less really take away all the major awards for themselves. On the one hand, the visit of Gergiev-opera is ironically prevented by the administration of the Bolshoi Theater: for the only commensurate Vladimir Vasiliev does not want to allow competitors to the Moscow stage of the Mariinsky under any pretext, and, apparently, this only plays into the hands of Valery Gergiev, who is always dissuading himself from live representation at the “Mask” due to the busy touring schedule of his troupe, but actively corrects the choice of the expert council with his personal wishes This year, for example, Gergiev personally withdrew the “Queen of Spades”, nominated by experts, from the festival: supposedly he and Vladimir Galuzin like this production so much that without the performer of the role of Herman, burdened with foreign contracts, he simply does not want to give it.” (Elena Cheremnykh, Kommersant)

“The calculation of Valery Gergiev, the artistic director of the theater, also became clear, who by a strong-willed decision withdrew from the competition the second performance of the Mariinsky Theater - “The Queen of Spades” by Alexander Galibin, which had good chances, if not of winning in the main nomination, then at least of a decent harvest of “Masks” "Having gotten rid of its competitor, Kotko collected all imaginable prizes." (Gulara Sadikh-zadeh, “News Time”)

“It’s not clear why “The Mask” took this into account, but “Semyon Kotko”, which was generously left to it, was dutifully dragged by the jury to St. Petersburg. So what? Far from the best work of the Mariinsky Theater with far from the best set design and a direction that was very doubtfully updated for cultural enlightenment, received as many as four "Masks" - as the best performance, the best director's work in an opera (Yuri Alexandrov), the best work of an artist (Semyon Pastukh) and, finally, the best conductor's work (Valery Gergiev) - while, obviously, only one award would be enough : to conductor Gergiev." (Elena Cheremnykh, Kommersant)

“Only the last award can be considered unconditional: “Semyon Kotko” as a theatrical product raises great doubts, and critics’ opinions on it are decidedly divided. The jury, as it happens, was made up almost entirely of ardent supporters of this work, which was extremely conscientiously made, but smacks of the fashion of the beginning perestroika, when it seemed that the most modern thing was to show the world as a pile of iron cosmic debris, and allowing the direct Red Guard pathos of the opera by the Soviet composer Prokofiev onto the stage seemed a civil crime. Prokofiev, bashfully altered to suit liberal tastes, resulted in a stillborn performance, which the jury now equalized in rights with last year’s masterpiece of the same Yuri Alexandrov - the modern chamber opera “Cornet Christoph Rilke”, which then received the main prize of the festival completely deservedly." (Petr Pospelov, Izvestia)

“Everything seems to be extremely fair, but it’s a pity that on the other side there are phenomena worthy of attention, such as, for example, the young unique talent Dmitry Chernyakov, director of the Novosibirsk play “Young David” based on the minimalist opera by Vladimir Kobekin. This performance, due to its inclusion in the European the opportunistic context became the focus of attention not only at the opera, but also at all other theater gatherings." (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

“This year’s jury also had a chance to support contemporary art: if Novosibirsk’s “Young David” had received one of the main prizes, this would have become an undoubted incentive for the province to look for new scores and attract young directors operating in the current theatrical language. On the other hand, "I don't want to blame the jury for inertia - Vladimir Kobekin's opera was a little loose in Moscow, and the shortcomings of the production, scenography, libretto and even the music itself became more obvious. Nevertheless, there was no better opera performance at the festival." (Petr Pospelov, Izvestia)

“In the conducting category, Aleksey Lyudmilin (Novosibirsk) and Evgeniy Brazhnik (Ekaterinburg) showed decent professionalism - the latter’s work with the orchestra and choir was the only consolation in Mazepa; I would crown this opera with the title of the most unsuccessful (directorally and vocally) performance of the current festival. But when the Mariinsky Theater performances participate in the competition, the person of Valery Gergiev moves all the other contenders into the realm of context." (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

“The remaining three “Masks” were played as a game of preference.” (Elena Cheremnykh, Kommersant)

Thought like this:

“By and large, there is no extraordinary female role in the opera this time, but if “The Mask” is awarded in this nomination, it will be either Tatyana Kuindzhi (who has very strong support in circles) for the Queen of Shemakhan in “Helikon”, or Liliya Ustyuzhanina for the travesty role of Jonathan in "Young David", or the charming "daughter of the regiment" Svetlana Kolyanova." (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

With the latest forecast, the critic hit the nail on the head:

“The Mask” for the best actress went to Krasnoyarsk together with Svetlana Kolyanova, who dashingly and recklessly charmed the strict capital with her “daughter of the regiment” in Donizetti’s opera - this award is one of the most pleasant at the current festival. (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

In the Krasnoyarsk performance there was “Best Actress” - Svetlana Kolyanova, organic in acting, in vocals, and in spoken dialogues." (Larisa Dolgacheva, "Culture")

The only thing that “Young David” managed to win back from “Semyon Kotko” was the award for Best Actor.

“The jury of the competition seriously discussed the question of whether to give the acting “Masks” to the main performers of “Kotko” - Gennady Bezzubenkov and Viktor Lutsyuk. But they decided otherwise - and the two “Masks” went to Siberia, to the Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk theaters.” (Gulara Sadikh-zadeh, “News Time”)

“In such a situation, the award for best actor to Novosibirsk bass Valery Gilmanov (King Saul) was not very comforting - it looks like a politically correct nod to the jury in order to sweeten the pill of losing to the theater and the performance.” (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

Saying goodbye to his Moscow colleagues after the final banquet, director Yuri Alexandrov dramatically stood in the middle of the hall and exclaimed: “Goodbye, Moscow!” Dmitry Bertman answered him: “Hello, Petersburg!”

“Moscow in opera would have flown by one hundred percent, if not for the chamber project of Alexey Parin and the Helikon Theater “Voices of the Invisible,” which was awarded in the “Novation” nomination. “Another situation confirmed that there is no vaunted Moscow level in opera, unlike drama doesn't exist." (Petr Pospelov, Izvestia)

As for “Voices of the Invisible,” according to Andrei Khripin (“Nezavisimaya Gazeta”), “if you look closely, there is nothing particularly revolutionary and innovative in them - three ascetic one-man performances with a piano to the music of modern radical composers. Get this “Mask” “It wasn’t too difficult, because Dmitry Bertman and Co. had no competitors and no context within the nomination. Well, congratulations anyway.”

“In general, the smooth work of the jury was marked only by a small behind-the-scenes curiosity: at the last meeting, after a half-hour speech on the topic “Why is there no “Mask” for composers?” composer Vladimir Dashkevich dropped out of the arbiters. The only victim of poor explanatory work “about compromise and compromise" (directly according to Lenin) - this, of course, is not bad for a festival, which the organizers apparently still regard as effective. However, with the effectiveness of the opera line at "The Mask", it must be said, it does not matter. And the further - the more " (Elena Cheremnykh, Kommersant)

Moscow itself turned out to be a problem for many of the performances that came to the festival:

"The Tales of Hoffmann" by the St. Petersburg Theater "Through the Looking Glass" (directed by Alexander Petrov, conducted by Pavel Bubelnikov) and the Italian musical by Armando Trovaioli "The Devil and the Virgin" by the Yekaterinburg Theater of Musical Comedy (directed by Kirill Strezhnev) - reminded us that houses and walls help. Those who happened to see both performances “on the ground” will apparently agree with me that there they made, to put it mildly, a different impression. Moscow halls and the “cruel” metropolitan public with its inflated scale of values ​​revealed the inconsistency of both productions." (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

Yaroslav Sedov (“Itogi”) points out the weaknesses of other imported works:

“Georgy Isaakyan, the director of Mazepa at the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater, limited himself to leaving the performers to wander between huge black nails. The Krasnoyarsk Opera Theater brought a tedious, clumsy performance staged by Alexander Polubentsev to the music of Carl Orff’s famous cantata Carmina Burana.. However, the Krasnoyarsk Theater partially compensated the public for the emotional damage by showing a vaudeville-like, light, exciting, and most importantly, professionally constructed production of Donizetti’s opera “The Daughter of the Regiment” by director Vyacheslav Tsyupa with the charming Svetlana Kolyanova, who famously sang (and at the same time danced) the virtuoso part of the main character Maria. "

This performance, according to Larisa Dolgacheva (“Culture”), is “a continuation of the wonderful provincial tradition of staging unworn things like this opera-comic by Donizetti (conservative Moscow is stubbornly losing to the provinces here).”

Valery Kichin (Izvestia) in no way finds these merits in this performance and is perplexed why “the leader is, for example, the amateur “Daughter of the Regiment” from Krasnoyarsk, where no one on stage not only knows how to sing, but very vaguely understands "What is music? A tasteless performance, reminiscent of a cheap operetta, with a collapsed choir, a monotonously thundering orchestra, a monstrous tenor and a harsh, unmusical soprano, which nevertheless receives a prize."

“I’m not sure, ” the critic continues, “ that the pleasure of learning about the deplorable state of artistic quests on the domestic stage is worth the cyclopean costs that the import of an opera house with a choir and orchestra requires. And if we have extra money for this voyage, then wouldn’t it be more expedient then bring back normal touring from oblivion? But the fact of the matter is that touring of this level will inevitably fail.

It always seemed to me that the festival exists to confirm and strengthen the reputation of our musical theater, which in the best examples is still high and meets world standards. But in this case, are the very weak “Tales of Hoffmann” in St. Petersburg, the above-described “David” or the criminal “Daughter of the Regiment” better than “La Traviata” or “The Demon” in the “New Opera”? I’m not a fan of the current Bolshoi, but even in a crisis they can’t sing as poorly as in Krasnoyarsk, newly crowned with the “Mask.”

Pyotr Pospelov (Izvestia) has a slightly different approach:

“This year, the musical playbill of “Mask” was generously filled with opera performances from the provinces. Having arrived in Moscow, they fell under the cruel and in many ways fair judgment of criticism and snobs. For provincial theaters this is a positive and constructive experience. Therefore, in my opinion, to bring performances from the regions are certainly necessary - it is the festival in Moscow, even if only for a short time, that destroys the isolation of the provincial context. The festival is useful to everyone who comes to it, even if this benefit comes in the form of a demonstrative flogging. And the prize that Krasnoyarsk artist Svetlana Kolyanova took home (“Daughter of the Regiment”) should be considered a stingy but correct measure to encourage provincial success.”

Let's leave it to Andrey Khripin (Nezavisimaya Gazeta) to draw a conclusion:

“Performances from the provinces are doomed in advance to play the role of “lucky losers.”

Operetta/musical

The festival fate of these genres is creaking, albeit sometimes loudly:

“The performances shown in the “Operetta and Musical” nomination were surprisingly energetic - archaic and tawdry, reminiscent of amateur skit shows. “This energy would be for peaceful purposes,” the theatergoers complained after another round of screams, tongue twisters, grimaces, flashing colorful costumes in gallops and cancans." (Yaroslav Sedov, “Results”)

“If there are no worthy performances in a given genre, perhaps we should do without including them in the nomination at all?” (Anna Vetkhova, "Culture")

“Thanks to the witty music of the experienced St. Petersburg composer Viktor Pleshak, the Krasnoyarsk performance “Incognito from St. Petersburg” based on “The Inspector General” seemed least tiresome. However, the retelling of Gogol’s play in “operetta” verses turned out to be so comical that it overshadowed even the funny musical effects.” (Yaroslav Sedov, “Results”)

“In the category “Operetta/Musical”, the highest quality and most harmonious performance in terms of music and stage design was presented by the Krasnoyarsk Theater of Musical Comedy (“Incognito from St. Petersburg” by Viktor Pleshak based on Gogol’s “The Government Inspector”), and it will be a shame if “Mask” goes to a performance that disappointed Moscow Ekaterinburg "The Devil and the Virgin" (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

Didn't leave:

“ The promising Krasnoyarsk youth Ivan Korytov was unexpectedly appointed as the best actor of an easy but difficult genre for the role of Osip in V. Pleshak’s Gogol musical “Incognito from St. Petersburg” - and here, there is no other way to say it, the trick of the jury, since in the person of Korytov they were still rewarded in advance an unconscious natural gift and blind organics, while two strong, established professionals were left with nothing, able to skillfully play roles, hold an audience and own the secrets of the craft - Vladislav Pitalsky (Khlestakov) and Vladimir Smolin (Devil in the Yekaterinburg musical "Devil" and the virgin" by Kirill Strezhnev). Or will you order such a decision to be considered Solomonic?!" (Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta)

“The jury awarded the prize “For Best Actor” to Ivan Korytov (Osip). Remark by the author of the article: a silent scene based on Gogol.” (Anna Vetkhova, "Culture")