Tsar, ballet, glamor

In the Moscow Theater "New Opera" appeared the "Queen of Spades" Tchaikovsky in the production of Yuri Alexandrov. This director all the time puts both reviewers and selectors of the Golden Mask festival (as well as, I think theater accounting services) in a difficult situation. Nowadays, healing compliance with copyrights, with some completely shameless lightness in different corners of an unleffite country, produces more or less identical performances, each time calling them the premieres. Whoever wants to, can look for ten differences in his "princes Igorkh" or "peak ladies." But since we are not talking about the Great and Mariinsky Theaters, but, say, about Rostov-on-Don and the Chamber Theater "Saint-Petersburg Opera", then there are very few enthusiasts.

In principle, in the repertoire of the small and lively St. Petersburg Theater “St. Petersburg Opera”, founded by Alexandrov in 1987, “Queen of Spades”, dedicated (as the site reports) “The XX Century of Russia: the era of wars, suffering, nostalgia” is to this day, the review of this performance has long been written, all its amazing imagination has been retrained.

The hospital beds of the First World War era, Lisa with Polina among other sisters of mercy, a funeral, a frustrated master's piano for the accompaniment for the front -line song “Lovely Friends”. The Stalin Flafacial Farm, Friendship of Peoples, "Swinar and Shepherd", blurted with pastoral "Sincerity of the shepherdess". Dear and tired of life, the Kremlin prostitute Countess (who is still very nothing), Chekists and a search after her death. Blockade, Neva, Lisa. Gambling, successful men, currency girls, German.

In 2001, this performance was even brought to Moscow to Mask. But who remembers? It is one thing - the festival audience, the other is the audience of the New Opera. And one thing is 2001, another-2013. Today, by the way, for this you can get in the brain for abuse of classics.

Or, conversely, a good box office. In this case, the second is rather the second. Still, the “new opera” is not a sacred Bolshoi Theater, but the director Aleksandrov, in the “Queen of Spades” of which, as in the Chernyakov “Ruslan”, also like a Lezginka is dancing with completely not intended music-not the director of Chernyakov, who does not mix, but is converted to the nerve endings of the audience. Yes, and Stalin with a pipe in the play is not at all a problematic and terrible figure of Russian history, but a sort of harmless sympathy from the sketch show “Six Personnel”.

Moreover, you will not run away with the “peak ladies” in our city: in Bolshoi - very boring, in Stasik - very old. And here is such a bold and cool thrash show, not alien, by the way, Western trends - a couple of years ago Stefan Herhaim, recognized the idol of the modern European theater, also saw Eugene Onegin through the axiom of Russian life: the king, Red Army, ballet, glamor .

However, the Apartican Lady of 2001 made an upgrade. Now the performance is dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the Romanov House, and a well-recognized family in white clothes with four daughters and one son is launched into the summer garden of the first picture. The beginning of the action is the postcard of 1913. The end is a much more fresh modernity. Replaced scenography. Instead of the artist Zinovia Margolina, now a full -time artist of New Opera Viktor Gerasimenko, who loves aggressive video and large, catchy images. This time - there is nowhere larger: repeatedly enlarged and absolutely naked “Amur and Psyche” from the summer garden either with chest, then with the ass, or the heel hang over all the ups and downs of Russian history.

However, the “peak lady” is a rare opera in the modern world, when the first question about her production is still not “who is the director”, but “who is Herman”. The party of Herman is one of the most difficult in the tenor repertoire, and the craftsmen are becoming less and less. Soon they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. A few days before the premiere, the local scandal flared up in the “New Opera” - Vladimir Galuzin, the long -term reference executor of this party, the world gastroter, who was counted on, took off his candidacy, citing disagreement with directing. Another version is that his young wife was not approved for the role of Lisa.

One way or another, I had to do it on their own. And they were found - once again, surprising the wealth of the bins of the irregular metropolitan theater. Herman was confidently sang at the pre -premiere performance Mikhail Gubsky. Vasily Ladyuk (unexpectedly discovered dancing abilities) as Yeletsky and Andrzej Beletsky in the role of Tomsk also did not cause objections. Galina Badikovskaya Party Lisa was given with some losses to the final. The countess, from which this production requires not only Mezzo-soprano, but also the absence of complexes, bravely performed Alexander Saulskaya-Shuzhuyuyeva. The male part of the choir pleased more than female. Behind the remote control stood a reliable Moldavian maestro Alexander Samoile, who, probably, is easier to present to Russian music lovers as a dad of the violinist Tatyana Samuel and the opera Berlin star Anna Samuel. The orchestra in his hands was rude (which, in principle, was well combined with what was happening on the stage), but is elastic and dynamic. A quite strong musical level of the new Moscow “Queen of Spades” is certainly no less dignity than comic directors. Or maybe even its excuse.