Milan's "Adrienne Lecouvreur" on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater

Francesco Cilea's opera "Adrienne Lecouvreur" from Milan's La Scala theater at the Bolshoi Theater is the second imported performance this season. For those who were lucky enough to see "Adrienne Lecouvreur" back in 1989, during La Scala's Moscow tour, we immediately inform you: Mirella Freni and Peter Dvorsky will not be there. Instead of them - Nelly Miriciu and Boyko Tsvetanov. And instead of the now deceased conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni - Alexander Vedernikov, who dedicated the new work of the Bolshoi Theater to the memory of Gavazzeni and the 100th anniversary of Cilea's opera "Adrienne Lecouvreur". In all other respects, this is the same "Adrienne", a luxurious, charmingly old-fashioned museum production that can safely be called the hallmark of La Scala. The production of the opera at the Bolshoi Theater was directed by Italian director Lamberto Puggelli. He taught the leading actress to properly wring her hands, throw off her peignoir at her lover’s feet and collapse on the ottoman like a poisoned corpse. And he worked thoroughly with the rest of the performers: he hung over the singers, stuck to them as a shadow, jumped up, twitched, and again memorized the trajectories of their movements on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, which was supposed to be transformed into the stage of the Comedy Francaise theater, where, in fact, the action takes place "Adrienne Lecouvreur"
Madame Lecouvreur is a famous actress of the 18th century, famous for her performances of phaedres, myrrhs, chimenes and roxanes in the Comedie Française. In the 19th century, playwright Eugene Scribe adorned Lecouvreur's biography with a legend about poisoning motivated by jealousy. Such a melodramatic method of murder and a crowned lady in the role of poisoner are quite in the spirit of the courtly era. The theater of love here plays out as if in parallel with the theater of power.
All the characters in Adrienne Lecouvreur are people from high society. Their ages are not indicated by the librettist, but it is not at all difficult to understand how old someone is. Adrienne (considering quitting the stage) is not that young. Her beloved Maurice (a naive, ambitious man) is, on the contrary, still young. The Princess of Bouillon (Maurice's previous passion) believes that Maurice exchanged her for the actress because she was younger. Michonne (though he doesn’t forget that “even love is a strategy”), Adrienne’s servant (loves her, but masks it with paternal feeling) is a noble sage.
But the main thing in the opera is still the music, which is here - you can’t imagine anything more beautiful: the timbres lie transparently, like oysters on glass; the arias are overcome by passion and languor; operatic singing literally boils away from the broth of recitatives; vocal acting is given under the double sauce of drama and choreography.
One of the most delicious episodes, the divertissement “The Judgment of Paris” is Russian, it was staged by the Bolshoi Theater ballet soloist Alexander Petukhov. But the columns, door suites, mirrors, costumes - all the luxurious props of the French 18th century, made in Italy in 1989, from there, from La Scala. For what? Yes, at least so that we can talk about the Italian opera tradition not from hearsay, but intelligently. And “Adrienne” deserves admiring reviews like no other performance.
ELENA CHEREMNYKH
Bolshoi Theater / 17-19 (19.00)

Magazine “Kommersant Weekend” No. 27 dated February 15, 2002, p. 20

Love and strategy La Scala