"Young David" and old operas

About the musical and dance nominees "Golden Mask" who arrived at Moscow

This year, for each nomination of the Golden Mask in the field of the musical theater there were several productions, most of which the “results” wrote after the prime minister (we wrote about the nominees in the field of the Drama Theater in December 1999). In total, 27 works were announced as applicants. As usual, the most “crowded” performances with bulky decorations of the Opera Semyon Kotko and the Queen of the Mariinsky Theater and his own ballet “Sleeping Beauty” could not be brought to the festival to Moscow (they could only be shown on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, which is reluctant to cooperate with the “mask”). Among the presented were quite rarely appearing on our opera stage, the work of Mazepa Tchaikovsky in the production of the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater and the very exotic “daughter of the regiment” of Donitnitti, represented by the Krasnoyarsk opera. Until now, this opera has not been launched by us: its main parties are written for Tenor, capable of taking the upper “DO” in one arias nine times in a row, as well as for soprano with an unusually wide range of voice.

But the explicit leader of the Yekaterinburg composer Vladimir Kobekin, the only large modern opera, put forward to the Golden Mask this season. In addition to her, from modern works in the program there is only a chamber triple “voices of the invisible” on biblical topics, the composition of the “Eva” monoperes Alexander Shchetinsky, “Moses” Vladimir Kobekin and the “Annunciation” of Joseph Bardanashvili. The Voices, set by Dmitry Bertman in the Helikon Theater, completed the festival. The rest of the opera performances are staged according to classical works and compete only in the interpretations of ancient scores. The Libretto of David with a fascinating plot and stylish verse, convenient for singing, wrote by biblical reasons the poet and famous opera critic Alexei Parin. The premiere took place in 1999 in the largest theatrical building of Russia - the Novosibirsk Academic Opera and Ballet Theater. The young Moscow director Dmitry Chernyakov, one of the most promising opera directors, placed spectators on the same stage where the action takes place, and deployed elegant -ironic mizanists against the backdrop of a color mosaic panel (artist - Igor Grinevich), through which the whole huge hall, then the details of its interior, sometimes shine through.

There is an exciting game of volume. The time of lyrical dialogs is incredibly narrowed, and in mass scenes it grows to the size of a huge hall. The abundance of theatrical effects is stunning. The Prophet Samuel is not a gaze: when he sings, on the screen, stretched out of the stage, the mouth of the performer of this party is projected. The offensive of the Philistines is indicated by a light wall on the edge of the scene, behind which countless hordes are light.

It seemed that the “young David” was so closely attached to the interiors of the Novosibirsk opera that it is possible to bring him to the festival to Moscow only with the building itself. But the organizers of the “Masks” found the premises of a similar volume and style of the Army Theater, where Chernyakov managed to reproduce all his findings without losses.

Unfortunately, the music is not as diverse and expressive as we would like for such a spinning-living performance. In addition, the St. Petersburg and Moscow singers, on whom the composer at one time, could not take part in the production. Because of this, the emphasis outlined by the director shifted. In the foreground was not David, conscientiously, but palely filled with Vitaly Efanov, but the imperious king Saul (Valery Gilmanov). However, despite the vulnerability of the musical part, the Novosibirsk David refers to the best Russian opera performances last season.

In the interpretations of classic operas, put forward to the “mask”, the directors, as if having conspired, tried to do without any stylistic signs of the time when the work was created.

The most boring was the “Carmen” of the Moscow Theater of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, played in gray costumes against the backdrop of gray cloths, devoid of expressive mise-en-scenes and energy, and also performed very medium. The Rubinstein in the “New Opera”, which was placed in the aesthetics of the musical, is much less winning in the musical material of the “Demon”, compared to “Carmen” as an exciting modern performance.