A week ago I saw a Finnish children’s opera in Helsinki and now I had a chance to see what kind of fantasy opera can be made with more resources. So, I hurried from the morning train directly by metro and bus to Mariinsky Theatre (I am really looking forward to the finishing of the Teatralnya metro station) to see “The Story of Kai and Gerda”, composed in 1980 by Sergey Banevich. The opera is based on the fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen – the Snow Queen.
In the fairy tale Kai and Gerda are good friends. Trolls have broken a mirror and shards of that mirror turn everything ugly. One of the shards flies into Kai’s eye and he becomes really mean. The Snow Queen kidnaps Kai to her realm, where he forgets Gerda. She starts searching for him and after a number of hindrances, she finds him, the shard is removed and they are together again.
In this opera also, the visual side is the high light of the opera. Grandiose children’s operas on the main stages in St. Petersburg are beautifully staged (a children’s opera in St. Petersburg just before Christmas has almost become a tradition to me) and so was this opera. Video technology (Victoria Zlotnikova) was used on grand scale, but also costume design (Elena Orlova) and light design (Evgeny Gansburg) were impressive.
The music by Sergey Banevich was occasionally rather musical-like. Since main part of the audience were children, it may be good that the music was not too difficult to understand and the same themes were repeated several times.
My favourite singer in the opera was Grigory Chernetsov as the Lamplighter. Really nice voice, even though he sometimes forgot which lamp he is supposed to aim at with his stick.
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