| Svetlanov conducted Wagner's operas without singers Given the total shortage of not great, just talented conductors per square meter of scores performed in Moscow, the appearance of Evgeniy Svetlanov at the helm of the Russian National Orchestra takes on a special meaning. Having parted with the State Orchestra, the maestro changed his mind about parting with the Russian public and for the second time in a short period of time he appeared on the stage of the Great Hall of the Conservatory with the brainchild of Mikhail Pletnev, now led by Vladimir Spivakov - RNO. Naturally, the hall was sold out. I think that if the maestro had performed with the State Orchestra, where they never stopped waiting for him, his performance would have become even more significant both for the culture and for himself.
On his first visit (in December 2001), Svetlanov conducted a mono program from the music of Brahms, and now he has proposed Wagner. Music that has not yet been performed here. The program included two symphonic fantasies from Wagner's operas - the tetralogy "The Ring of the Nibelung" and the mystery play "Parsifal", composed and arranged by the Dutch composer and percussionist Hank de Vlieger. Both opuses were first played in 1992 and 1993 respectively by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Edo de Waart, who dubbed Flieger's first paraphrase of Wagnerian music an "orchestral adventure".
The appearance of such works in the repertoire of a modern symphony orchestra is an attempt by modern culture to find a new perspective when looking at the classics and to fuel the audience’s interest in textbook things. The music of Wagner's operas is full of completed symphonic fragments that have long been included in the popular orchestral repertoire (overtures and introductions, symphonic intermissions and various scenes like "Ride of the Valkyries" or "Siegfried's Journey on the Rhine"), so the emergence of Flieger's scores is, at first glance, quite natural. Flieger decided to play on the notorious Wagnerian symphony, including in his fantasies large-scale pieces of the score, where the voices of the characters are heard, giving the vocal parts to the power of wind instruments. This is where the problem comes in. No, the Dutch maestro does not distort Wagner’s music at all, since fragments of the four operas can be held together practically without seams - this is a feature of the composer’s symphonic style and the logic of his leitmotif thinking. But in isolation from the action, these leitmotifs, ingrained in the ears of any more or less educated music lover, instantly lose their meaning, the composer’s philosophical reflections are leveled out, showing us simply a beautiful, competently orchestrated, well-composed and slightly drawn-out symphonic picture. Wagner's leitmotifs, the logic of which is calculated down to the smallest detail, appear already formed and complete in the arranger's version. We cannot trace the moment of their birth, we do not know how they behaved in this or that segment of the opera and which of the characters put what meaning into this or that saying. With "Parsifal" the situation is even worse, although this fantasy is perceived more organically by ear than the "Ring", but for one simple reason - the mystery is less popular, accordingly, its music is not known to a wide audience from the first to the last note, like the music of a tetralogy . But in “Parsifal” there are no colorful completed symphonic pictures, and in the absence of a clear plot development, the philosophical nature again cannot be preserved. Therefore, the second score turned out to be even more static and even less meaningful. It is no coincidence that Wagner worked so painstakingly on the libretto: nevertheless, the spoken word was no less important for him than the theme played at that moment. And to be absolutely precise, one cannot be separated from the other. Flieger tried. The result was an orchestral adventure. Anna VETHOVA |
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