Gergiev At His Best

The Mariinsky production of Verdi’s opera Simon Bokkanigra is a joint work with the theaters of Venice and Genoa of Divine Italian Beauty from the director and artist Andrea de Rose. She was nominated for last year's Golden Mask, but due to the total mismatch of the schedules of the National Theater Prize and Valery Gergiev, she fell out of the program.

Maybe this is right. To be distracted by competitive bustle and staging tourist views here is completely not necessary. A year later, the opera - already without the Genoese windows and the Ligurian Sea, in strictly concert form - were brought to the Tchaikovsky hall. And in the endless stream of diverse events that flicker around the Mariinsky Khudruk, she recalled what, in fact, the essence of this huge phenomenon called “Hergians”. The more exciting, powerful and high -quality execution of this essay, sometimes causing mortal longing (for example, on last year’s tour of the La Scala in the Bolshoi Theater ), is difficult to imagine.

Gergiev was properled by Simon between the meeting of the Organizing Committee of the Tchaikovsky contest-2019 (now not only pianists, violinists, cellists and vocalists, but also ovens) and the press conference on the impending Easter festival will be competed (new records will be broken-32 days, 169 cities). The start of the concert was moved to 20:00, of course, still late. But to monitor the history of enmity, love and election manipulations in the Genoese Republic of the XIV century still cost until the very end (not everyone was withstood).

It is not possible to retell a plot of three actions with a prologue stretched for a quarter century. The heroes constantly do not recognize each other, they misunderstand, suffer for any reason and, of course, die (although in this case it is extremely small). All these conventions of the old opera, for the justification of which modern directors are supposed to jump above their heads and turn inside out, the Hergieva orchestra overcomes without hesitation. A bass-klarnet roar in the stage, where the insidious Paolo (a close relative of the future yago from Othello) curses himself in horror, sits in horror better than any decoration and a staged concept.

However, you can’t take the opera on one orchestra, even Gergievsky. From the very beginning, this setting happened well with the singers, even Placido Domingo himself in his baritonal hypostasis somehow gave her his presence . There was no domino in Moscow, but it’s a sin to complain about the selected composition. All soloists are better than another, not a single failure - neither in arias, nor in the most difficult ensembles. It almost never happens.

This is the opera of great male passions, which is shaken only by the young daughter of Simon Bokkanegra Maria, most of the opera called by Amelia. In this party, the Moscow public presented a real treasure - the European celebrity Tatyana Sergeant originally from the St. Petersburg Children's Theater "Zaglovye", in recent years a lot of working in Mariinka. Her strong, gentle and fragrant soprano was surrounded by four outstanding male voices. The beautiful baritone and charismatic sufferer Vladislav Sulimsky-in the title party of the father of Maria-Amelia Simon Bokkanegra. The absolutely incredible brilliance of tenor Otar Georgikiy is in the role of her jealous lover Gabriela Adorno (in fairness it is worth noting that the Bolshoi Theater also managed to lay a vocal Georgian - he made his debut in the role of Alfred in “Travision”). Luxurious Orenburg bass Stanislav Trofimov - in the role of her too late the discovered grandfather Jacopo Fesko. And another bright baritone Roman Burdenko is as a villain and intriguer Paolo, who eventually converted Bokkanegra to the grave.

Mariinka gold flashed in full force. Now again you can switch to counting kilometers, hours and records in the schedule of her chief.