Mlada in the Mariinsky-2, the 25th of May, 2019

They say things always come in threes! So my last opera of the day was again a Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera. Mlada is performed even in Russia very rarely. In St. Petersburg it was performed originally only six times and the next round was in 1923 after which there was a long break till 2004 and now Mariinsky-2 had two concert performances of it, so of course I had to go and see it.

To be quite honest, I have no idea why this opera is performed so seldom. The story is certainly silly, but that is in no way unusual when it comes to operas and the music was spectacular in my opinion. A lot worse operas are performed more regularly.

It has been said about Mlada, that it has connections to Richard Wagner’s Ring and sure, you can find some similarities. The story has some same features with its ancient gods, poisoned ring etc and  even in the music I though I could find some touching points: in the beginning of the third act suddenly “The Rhinegold” came to my mind.

The opera doesn’t, in itself, feature Mlada, even though that is its name. Mlada has actually died before the start of the opera. Voyslava has killed her by a poisoned ring to win Mlada’s beloved Yaromir to herself. When Yaromir still doesn’t fall for Voyslava, she turns to the evil goddess Morena for help. With her help he seems to become interested in Voyslava. But in his dreams Yaromir still sees Mlada and also her demise. He wants to know if she indeed was murdered and asks this from the good god Radegast, who confirms the murder. Yaromir then kills Voyslava and rises to Heaven with Mlada. So once again, a truly realistic opera.

As is his habit, the conductor Valery Gergiev was 30 minutes late. His habit is truly irritating, but fortunately in the end of the long wait there was real enjoyment available. Mlada’s music was varied, at times a bit unusual, but really exciting. I immediately liked the music and I definitely want to see this opera again some time on stage.

The orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre played like a dream and in this concert version the audience also had a chance to see the musicians. I paid attentions to the fact that the musicians really seemed to enjoy playing this opera. Especially the wind instruments seemed to have fun, but they also had some of the most unusual tunes to play and in addition to that they got to clap their hands to the rhythm, which is not so usual.

The soloist were of the elite caliber. I liked myself the most Vladislav Kupriyanov, who sang the role of the high priest of Radegast. Also the singer in the role of Yaromir, Sergei Skorokhodov, made a good impression on me.