Translated material
The intoxicating Rossini?
Premiere of “The Barber of Seville” at the Novaya Opera
The epithet “delightful” for the name Rossini was invented by Pushkin, who lived at the same time as the great Italian - he knew how delightful Rossini’s arias and ensembles were when properly performed. In modern Moscow, only one musician could do such a Rossini - Evgeniy Kolobov, for whom no replacement has yet been found.At the New Opera, the premiere of “The Barber of Seville” is conducted by the current music director, Eri Claes, a maestro known in Moscow as a worthy, highly professional musician. The orchestra, which seethed and pulsated under Kolobov’s hands, giggled and sobbed, reproached and consoled, on the whole plays very well, but does not provide the key to understanding the score: Klas does not listen to the essence, but skims on the surface. Above all, the director, also a highly professional master, the Englishman Elijah Moshinsky, strives for external entertainment.
Even the director’s choice of singers in the New Opera for one role or another was purely external. He saw Rosina only as a coloratura soprano. And we see on stage a pretty, lively, stylish girl of the twentieth century, who, however, sings in a poor operetta voice, although she hits all the high notes (Anastasia Belukova). Figaro, performed by Oleg Shagotsky, is jovial, imposing and grivoisen, quickly scratches through the recitatives (without understanding anything about them), but his voice treacherously rattles and fidgets furtively over the notes.
Moshinsky creates a performance in which there is a lot of bustle on the stage, a scattering of fast movements and mountains of animation. Thank God, there is no bad taste, but there are much more external jokes than subtle and natural humor. The design by Anne Tilby, a cool English art lady, is stylish in its understated and almost anti-theatrical quality. A comforting contrast to the vulgarity of one of the theatre's latest premieres, L'elisir d'amore.
There are enough good singers in the New Opera, and excellent professionals are occupied in secondary roles. Sergei Sheremet endows his characters (Fiorello and Officer) with an excellent voice and dignified demeanor; Confidently singing Anastasia Babicheva dashingly gives Bertha the recognizable features of the heroine of a tabloid comedy or a Latin American TV series. Vladimir Kudashev has a very beautiful voice, in which there is both a luxurious viscosity and a “tear”, and therefore he sings Don Basilio by right. But isn’t it time for a young singer to stop lovingly admiring his own voice and take singing technique seriously, to get out of the captivity of constant loud sound, which prevents him from achieving maximum expressiveness? Otherwise, Don Basilio turns into a one-dimensional caricature.
Nothing like this happens to Dr. Bartolo, played by Dmitry Ovchinnikov. Excellent nuanced singing always expresses the inner state. It’s not for nothing that Ovchinnikov is the soloist of the Helikon Opera: the chef there, Dmitry Bertman, knows how to create a theatrical miracle - a “singing actor”. The vocal gesture of Ovchinnikov’s Bartolo in front of the young Count Almaviva becomes especially effective: this young man rushing ahead is very brave and reckless! Bartolo's eyes are already sparkling!
In the role of Count Almaviva is Sergei Romanovsky, making his stage debut, a recent graduate of the Moscow Conservatory and the main discovery of this performance. We already know his voice - in September he sang Tybalt in a concert performance of Bellini’s “Capulets and Montagues” and immediately attracted attention (see Vremya Novostey, September 8) . But the harsh, vindictive Tybalt, a supporting role, is one thing, and Almaviva, a role for a prime tenor, is another. And as soon as his voice sounds in the wondrous serenade of the first picture, we immediately understand: before us is a real Italian lyric tenor, whose sweet sound spreads the red carpet of triumph before him. No matter how young the singer is, his ability to play with his voice and convey the most subtle turns of emotional movements through different gradations of volume and timbre shades reveals him to be a master. Small in stature, Romanovsky has an expressive face and lively facial expressions, his eyes sparkle and light up with the bright fire of inspiration. He is not embarrassed by his height and allows himself to be lifted by the waist and held in weight, like a living doll, by the stately and tall Figaro.
If we compare Romanovsky with today's opera stars of the younger generation, he has both the seductiveness of his voice, like Juan Diego Flores, and the impetuous expressiveness of his vocal gesture, like Rolando Villazon. But Romanovsky also has something completely Moscow. This is soft sincerity, piercing lyricism, making one remember Sergei Yakovlevich Lemeshev. Romanovsky’s voice is instantly saturated with love passion, we feel the ardent soul of this young rake - and again we remember Pushkin: “...he pours sounds - they boil, they flow, they burn like young kisses.”