Prokofiev’s
“War
and Peace”
Metropolitan Opera, New York
Performance
of 18 February ‘02
Brought
to you in SuperVision by Mark Burstein
When I heard
that the Met was presenting their first-ever production ever of War and
Peace,
[1]
that was inducement enough to travel to the recently-bitten
Big Apple,
[2]
as I, along with hundreds of others, had been initiated
into SuperWorld through our monumental ’91 production.
[3]
That one was memorable for many things: the Super March
up Franklin Street, the U.S. debut of a young conductor named Gergiev (which
began our long-standing relationship with the Mariinsky [Kirov] Opera), the
Russian cast’s reaction to the real-life anti-Gorbachev putsch which
was occurring simultaneously, “Natasha Rostrova” (Ann Panagulias)’s nightly
arrival on a bicycle and the immortal, albeit unintentional, one-liner from
director Jerome Savary.
[4]
In that SFO production, supers were completely banned from
the house when not onstage, and we only got to see the orchestra tech rehearsal,
so never got a real sense of the opera, creating a lingering lacuna on my
personal “life-list”.
Now, add to that the promise of a luminous cast including Anna
Netrebko, Sam Ramey, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky and the journey was inevitable.
I asked for “best available” seats and was “rewarded” with a pair of superb
Parterre Center box seats, albeit at a hefty price.
[5]
Oh, was it worth it!
Let me first get something out of the way. If one had nothing but
reports from the New York Times to go on, one would believe that this
opera was not about Natasha Rostova’s fall from innocence, but super Simon
Deonarian’s more literal tumble into the orchestra pit on opening night, causing
the opera to come to a complete halt for four or five minutes just before
the ending. Actually, he fell into a net (invisible to the audience), scrambled
backstage, and was later rewarded with an onstage solo bow with general director
Joseph Volpe. The opera was halted due to Gergiev’s concern with the violinist
whom Simon had fallen upon, breaking his bow. This incident was enough to
“merit” a notice in the Metro section on Friday, and the first twelve paragraphs
of the next day’s review. Deserving of a Hammy™ in absentia to be sure.
However, in a subsequent report, Simon was fired because closer inspection
of the in-house video inferred that he might have done it on purpose, in which
case we retract the Hammy™. Since when did coach’s challenges and instant
replay become part of SuperWorld?
The articles focused on the possible dangers of the giant dome that served as the stage floor – indeed large and highly raked, but I’ve seen a lot more dangerous (e.g. our ’95 Faust, the Bayreuth Ring in 1999, also set on a globe). The surface was smooth (a trompe l’oeil tessellation like a coffered ceiling in the first act; a ravaged warground in the second). Parts of it also retracted (revealing a prison), elevated (for Napoleonic posing), and rotated (adding enchantment to the ballroom scene).
Now include a cast of 350 (68 singing rôles, 120 choristers, 227 supers including many children, a horse, a goat, a dog, a chicken, and a midget Napoleon). As Humpty Dumpty said, “There’s glory for you.”
OK, while I’m off track and reviewing the scenery I should tell
you that this was a multimedia production (George Tsypin, set design), with
moving architectural elements (such as a wall with a burning fire in the fireplace
or a tower with Natasha and Sonya giggling on the balcony) suspended by cables
and coming in and leaving from above. All very minimalistic. There were no
curtains between sets, nor curtain calls at the end of the first act. Rear-screen
projection and scrims were used, which provided a supremely dramatic rendering
of the burning of Moscow and the great triumphal Meistersinger-esque
final stage picture.
Period costumes (over a thousand!) were quite authentic looking,
although the number of “Napoleon” hats in the Russian army was disconcerting.
I think the only thing out of place was in the ballroom scene, where giant
glowing neon-plastic “space-age bachelor pad” columns served as the décor.
The battle-scenes among the snows were stunning (I suppose ours were too,
from the house).
The only screwup in the performance I saw was as the peasants marched
in victory, signaling the climactic raising of a 30’ tall bright red cloth
Imperial Russian Double-Headed Eagle. Unfortunately, one side of it got tangled
and it ended up looking like a kind of demented and angry half-chicken.
But what about the OPERA???
This is an opera with everything stacked up against it. Tolstoy
HATED opera – in fact, set the pivotal scene in the novel where Natasha is
seduced by Anatol deliberately in the “counterfeit” and degenerate world of
an opera production, which he mercilessly satirized;
[6]
the enormity of the source material; the wartime conditions
under which it was written (Prokofiev himself having to flee Moscow in a literal
recreation of the plot); the endless revisions to fit into the Socialist Realism
of Stalin’s All-Union Committee on Arts Affairs; the enormous amount of bombast
and repetition and “Glorious Sons of the Fatherland” foo; the fact that it
is two completely separate dramas with different central characters; the enormity
of the casting, and length of the performance.
It is also an “opera” in thirteen “lyrico-dramatic” scenes, requiring
thirteen sets, and is more a series of vignettes than a drama having an actual
plot.
[7]
It also boasts a most unusual unfolding developmental
structure – more like the Eames film “Powers of Ten”
[8]
than a linear narrative. From the opening miniature in
the garden with just three characters, through the unfolding of their lives
and society up into the historical sweep of epic battles and from there to
universal themes.
Did it work?
Divinely.
Gergiev was in his element, especially in the second act (“War”)
where the pomp and pompousness of the Odes to Mother Russia were in full flower.
The orchestra played superbly, although his tempos in the more intimate scenes
could have been a bit more lingering.
Anna Netrebko (Natasha Rostrova) was incandescent
perfection in her official Met debut
[9]
in a rôle which could have been written for her, and which
she, according to this month’s Opera News in which she appears in a
languorous Playboy-esque foldout (fully clothed), has always wanted to sing.
She was by turns charmingly girlish, numinous, sublime, and deeply affecting,
her natural dark-toned meltingly clear soprano filling the house. Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Prince
Andrei Bolkonsky), although a touch harsh vocally
in the opening scenes, was her ideal complement (as he was in “The Tsar’s
Bride” at SFO a few seasons back. He’s dashingly handsome, charismatic, Siberian,
with a wonderfully musical and potent baritone voice, and was profoundly moving.
Their final “piti”-ful duet of tragic forgiveness was utterly unforgettable.
Russian operas, as we all know, tend to give the baritones the romantic leads,
and relegate tenors to the Wacky Neighbor or Best Friend or Bad Guy rôles,
the reverse of Italian opera.
Sam Ramey was magnificent, with the burnishings
of a long career reflected in his portrayal of the frail and aging, but ultimately
triumphant, Field Marshall Kutusov – introspective and emotional in the “council
chamber” scene, a firebrand in the grand choral apotheosis. Far be it from
me to review the other sixty-some singers, but the other standouts in the
cast were Gegam Grigorian as Pierre Bezukhov, her mentor and, although not
mentioned in the opera, eventual husband.
[10]
Victoria Livengood was a bit long in the tooth for Hélène,
the belle of Moscow,
[11]
but the most outstanding singer with whom I was not familiar
was the wily seducer, Prince Anatol Kuragin (Oleg Balashov), whose creamy,
luxuriant tenor was all-too-briefly in service. One of the dramaturgical weaknesses
of the opera is the seemingly instantaneous and unexplained defection of Natasha
from her fiancé to this sleazeball, but Oleg’s portrayal helped to make the
case, at least vocally. More, please! Other familiar faces included Gary Rideout,
Vladimir Ognovenko, Claudia Waite, and Nikolai Gassiev.
The ballet was used extensively and quite
well. And supers were all over the place indulging in every kind of super-foo
imaginable – marching (many actually in step), fighting, posing, waving flags,
opening doors, carrying candelabras, acrobatically tumbling, flailing across
the stage as bald-headed loonies, and so on, as well as children, nekkid girls,
and the aforementioned midget Napoleon. And Simon Deonarian, Super-Star. Some
of the more prominent supers actually got billed in the program (Tsar Alexander
I, the French Actresses, etc.)
Particular favorite memories include the
lovely opening trio, the dancing at the ball, the second act opening tableau
involving Napoleon astride his horse and hundreds of soldiers, the magnificent
stagings of the battles in the snow and the burning of Moscow, and the exquisitely
poignant reconciliation between the dying Andrei and the penitent Natasha.
I was not too impressed by the audience,
however. It was up to my wife Llisa, radiant in a gold strapless gown, to
single-handedly provide most of the Old-Time Monday Night Glamour, though
there were a few nice shmatas in the plastic-surgery wing (the Parterre),
and we thought we saw David Hockney. The audience seemed ill-at-ease with
an unfamiliar work, and were less than enthusiastic in their applause. Like
some of the ruder members of our audience, there was a storming of the doors
at the end.
This Met production will be broadcast on radio
on March 2nd. Also check out the Kirov video!
The evening may have been quite long, but at least it wasn’t “War
and Peace”. Well, actually…
[1]
Indeed, only their second Prokofiev
ever, after last year’s The Gambler. Tsk. SFO is so far ahead!
[2]
There is an eerie symmetry
about the opera’s theme being the sudden murderous attack on Russia by Napoleon;
it being composed during the unexpected Nazi Wehrmacht on Moscow,
shattering their nonaggression pact; and this production taking place so
shortly after the horrific events of September 11th.
[3]
during
the centennial year of Prokofiev’s birth. Interestingly and ironically,
he died on the same day as Stalin, March 5th, 1953
[4]
An unfulfillable stage direction
to the men involving an, er, exhibition of elation (ask anyone who was there)
[5]
$570 a pair + the requisite
bribe
[6]
the
scene of Natasha’s moral downfall is set during the performance of an opera,
a pastiche of recognizable bits of “Lucia di Lammermoor”, “Il Trovatore”
and other operas popular in Tolstoy’s — not Natasha’s — time. “Natasha,”
Tolstoy wrote, “saw only the painted cardboard and the oddly dressed men
and women who moved, spoke and sang so strangely in that brilliant light.
She knew what it all was supposed to represent, but it was so blatantly
false and unnatural that she felt alternately ashamed for the actors and
amused by them.” Yet she is eventually engulfed, and Anatol can move in
on the hypnotized beauty and claim her. Prokofiev changed the seduction
scene to a ballroom.
[7]
Of course, Prokofiev could
assume great familiarity with the source material and the language in his
Russian audience; a luxury we Westerners do not share.
[8]
Wherein the camera sees a simple
picnic on the grass and pulls back and back and back until galaxies are
revealed and then pulls in and in and in to see the atomic realms. www.eamesoffice.com.
[9]
She had appeared previously
on the Met stage as part of the 1998 Kirov Festival
[10]
He also Pierre in
the Kirov video and CD.
[11]
Begging
comparison with the divine Elena Zaremba in ours