This year celebrates 175 years since the birth
of composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and I thought already that the anniversary
is going to pass without any remark in Finland, but fortunately the Rimsky-Korsakov
175 workgroup and Society “Fantasiaooppera” saved the day and produced two of
his short operas (The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga and Kashchei the Immortal), which
hadn’t been performed in Finland before. I saw myself “Kashchei the Immortal”
in May in St. Petersburg, but “The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga” was new to me, too.
The evening began with ”The Noblewoman Vera
Sheloga”, where Vera’s husband was still away after the war. In between Vera
had given birth to a child, whose father was another man, who had abandoned
Vera. She reveals her infidelity to her sister and when her husband returns
home and asks who the child is, the sister claims she is hers.
The opera is an intense story, where
tension is kept up till the end. The story of the unhappy Vera lives and breathes
in the music and the carefree life of the sister is broken in front of the eyes
of the audience. Tuuli-Elinä Kilpelä did a great role as the distressed Vera.
Unfortunately, I cannot praise the Russian
pronunciation of the singers, so I was quite happy that the opera had Finnish
texting. Sure, Russian is a challenging language to sing, especially since so
few Russian operas are actually performed in Western Europe, so you cannot get
a lot of practice, but I still felt disappointed when most of the text didn’t
much resemble Russian.
After the intermission it was time for ”Kashchei
the Immortal”, whose story you can read in my blog from May https://oopperadonna.blogspot.com/2019/05/.
It was really interesting to see two so different versions of the same opera
within such a short time frame. Ville Saukkonen’s direction was in my opinion a
success in both the operas. Saukkonen had distanced ”Kashchei the Immortal”
from the folk tale and his version was to me stronger than the Mariinsky
version and I liked it a lot.
The costumes of the hero and the heroine
brought to mind sport suits worn in the annual sport contest between Finland
and Sweden a few decades ago, but the couple (Emmi Kaijansinkko and Olli-Tapio
Tikkanen) was quite sweet. The absolute queen of the evening was Karoliina
Laurila-McLoud who sang the role of Kashcheyevna. Where has this stunning voice
been hiding?! Even her Russian pronunciation was good and her voice was pure
velvet. Fantastic! And even the abundant dress fit the role perfectly.
The visualisation of the two operas was by Hanna
Hakkarainen. Set design was rather simple, but it worked. The Soviet style dresses of ”The
Noblewoman Vera Sheloga” were a bit off to me, but on the other hand the story
was timeless. The costumes of “Kashchei the Immortal” were really good. A bit
crazy, but they did suit the story and the people.
The pianist Tuure Juutilainen accompanied
both the operas. Rimsky-Korsakov’s music sounded wonderful when played by a
solo piano. It was enjoyable to follow Juutilainen’s work and after the operas I
was flying. Huge thanks to the work group and all performers for this rare
treat!
 |
| The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga |
 |
| Kashchei the Immortal |
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti