My third opera of my visit to St. Petersburg in the Prokofiev
Hall of Mariinsky Theatre was a more recent opera. The composer Leonid
Klinichev’s opera “Zinaida“ was the third opera in his series about Russian
female poets. The previous ones were “Anna” (Anna Akhmatova) and “Marina”
(Marina Tsvetaeva). “Zinaida“ is a chamber opera for three soloists and it
tells about the life of Zinaida Gippius, her husband Dmitry Merezhkovsky and
the third person in their threesome, Dmitry Filosofov in Warsaw in the 1920’s.
Stage setting of the work was restricted, but suitable
and the costume design was beautiful. Gippius even had time to change once
during the one hour opera. Both costumes were copies of ones in her painting
and photograph.
The libretto of the opera was collected by the composer
himself from the poems and other writings of Gippius. One of the best things
about the opera was definitely the text. Extremely beautiful language as you
can expect from a libretto that is made partly of poems.
Accompaniment was played by a piano (Vasily Popov) as it
usually is in Prokofiev Hall and it suited this opera perfectly. The music
itself was charming; it contained repeated tunes but also singing without any
piano. I liked the music a lot.
But the crown jewel of this opera were the singers.
Gelena Gaskarova was good in the role of Gippius. Ilya Selivanov in the role of
the husband was not quite as lively, but remained a bit bland. And my personal
favorite was Grigory Chrenetsov in the role of Dmitry Filosofov. What a
beautiful baritone and when he also had the most beautiful aria of the opera,
what more can you say except “Wow”!
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