Translated material
Level of understatement
The results of the vocal competition surprised many
Eight lucky vocalists received their awards from the satisfied jury. But the jury's decision raised questions, the answers to which may not be pleasant to everyone. Why did the second prize among women go to Olesya Petrova, a student of the chairman of the jury Irina Bogacheva, whose modest artistic abilities and completely student vocal achievements did not give her grounds even for a position among the finalists? Why did Anna Viktorova, a student of jury member Pyotr Skusnichenko, make it to the finals with her, despite her flabby voice and artistically inarticulate mutterings? Why was Dmitry Beloselsky among the finalists, boringly and dispassionately writing out notes without putting any meaning into them? They say that he took lessons from jury member Evgeniy Nesterenko... About how the uncultured, uncouth, most comical participant named Pyotr Tolstenko, who so far belongs more likely in parks, slipped into the third round, one can make all sorts of guesses . Most likely, this is due to the taste of the jury chairman.The remaining four qualified for the finals on full grounds. But it’s unlikely that any of them are worthy of a significant first prize. After all, the prestige of the competition lies not only in the correct selection, but also in the height of the bar. Albina Shagimuratova (Russia, first prize) has excellent technique and a well-structured voice, but she sings dispassionately, does not think about coloraturas and often takes on parts that are not her own. There is no doubt that Marika Gulordava (Georgia, third prize) is the brightest creative personality of the competition, a singer of rare spiritual generosity. When in the second round she sang Tchaikovsky’s romance “The soul quietly flew through the heavens,” with our inner gaze we could see everything heavenly and earthly about which the dark and capacious voice sang. The whole time Gulordava is on stage, real music sounds (even a craft orchestra led by Yuri Simonov could not cancel this). And yet, Gulordava is still too young (21 years old!), and it would be premature to give her the first prize; the shine of the crown can be delayed here.
But among those who did not make it to the third round, at least two were worthy of the final. Liana Harutyunyan from France brought delightful music, her round, surprisingly pleasant voice and delicate taste allowed her to charm us with both the fragility of Leonora from “Il Trovatore” and the fortitude of Shostakovich’s Katerina Izmailova. The Chinese Zhang Ni attracted me primarily with the taste and subtlety with which she nurtures her large and gentle, directly affecting voice.
Among the men, the favorite was Bolshoi Theater soloist Maxim Paster (third prize, Ukraine). His performance in the second round showed us a mature chamber singer, who for some reason is in no hurry to spoil us with his leader bands. The unaccompanied Ukrainian folk song was perhaps the highlight of the entire second round. But in the finale we saw the inarticulate Fernando (“The Favorite” by Donizetti), twelve out of a dozen, and Lensky, whose soul was stolen. Alexander Tsimbalyuk (first prize, Russia), no doubt, turned out to be the best among numerous basses, standing out at least with the beginnings of artistic thinking, but, by God, among the basses we heard enough of at this competition, being the best does not mean being good. The third round was missing the wonderful Korean baritone Jeong-Hyun Moon, in whose performance both Hamlet from the opera Thoma and the unfortunate soldier from Britten’s “War Requiem” appeared extremely convincingly. It’s a pity that they also “weeded out” the Chinese dramatic tenor Xie Tian, who offered us singing with drive, with ecstasy, with enormous dedication. Much more worthy of reaching the final (compared to, say, Beloselsky) was the Bolshoi Theater soloist Pyotr Migunov, who showed both a strong singing voice and an acting gait.
Of course, some contestants were simply unlucky. The excellent vocalist Dmitry Zuev, who has already sung Onegin at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater, blurred the top notes in the aria from Troubadour. Veronica Dzhioeva, whose artistic merits are beyond praise, got confused and did not calculate her strength in the most difficult aria from “Lucrezia Borgia”. In these cases, the jury's verdict is clear.
But in others, questions remain. A radical solution was proposed by the chairman of the jury among violinists, Vladimir Spivakov. Having discovered after the first round that individual jury members were “dragging” their students and overwhelming potential competitors, he introduced a rule: the teacher is excluded from voting. And he noted with satisfaction that as a result the voting was fair. And Irina Bogacheva, having also awarded the diploma of the best accompanist of the competition to her own daughter (Elena Gaudasinskaya, however, really plays very well!), was very pleased with herself and those around her.
Of course, the current XIII Tchaikovsky Competition turned out to be not very strong in the selection of participants, but the jury did everything possible to ensure that its decisions left some surprisingly unpleasant aftertaste.