I still couldn’t leave Mariinsky Theatre’s Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov anniversary performances in peace, but galloped to St.
Petersburg to see the opera “The Legend of the invisible City of Kitezh and the
Maiden Fevronya” that is often said to be Rimsky-Korsakov’s best opera and is
rarely performed outside the Russian-speaking world.
The story of the opera is a mix of several Russian folk tales and quite
a mess it is. Maiden Fevronya lives in the forest with her brother and animals
are her friends. Prince Vsevolod gets lost in the forest, the young ones meet
and fall in love and get engaged within one day. When Fevronya leaves towards
Kitezh, the drunkard Grisha tries to mock her humble origins. Then the Tatars
attack, destroy everything and imprison both Grisha and Fevronya. People in Kitezh hear of the attack and
everybody is afraid. The men leave to battle them headed by Vsevolod. Almost
all of them, including Vsevolod, get killed. Grisha agrees to show the Tatars
the way to Kitezh, when threatened by torture. Fevronya, on the other hand,
prays that the city will become invisible. When the Tatars arrive at the lake,
by which Kitezh stands, the city is not seen. Grisha is bound to a tree for the
night to await execution. Fevronya frees him and they run to the forest. Grisha
becomes insane and abandons her. In the morning the Tatars only see the reflection of Kitezh on the lake
and run away horrified. In the end Fevronya is in Kitezh, where she finds Vsevolod.
They get married and
everybody rejoices.
First, I have to say that I do not fully agree with those who claim this
is Rimsky-Korsakov’s masterpiece – at least based on this production. I did like
the direction, which was simple but at least occasionally effective. Costume
design was a bit peculiar: as if the designer hadn’t been able to decide in
which century the story took place. Even the animals wore human clothes e.g.
the bird of paradise was an old woman wearing a head scarf. Set design was also
minimalistic, but that was probably a good thing, since it gave room to the
group scenes. And the crane horse of the chiefs of Tatars was great!
The music of the opera was only partly to my taste. The third act with its
groups scenes was the most delicious part. The dialogue between Poyakov and the
people of Kitezh was full of tension and strength. On the other hand, whenever
Fevronya was on stage, the tension dissapeared and in that sense, she was on
the stage far too often. The fourth act of the opera was quite redundant and the
praise of the Russian church did not interest me. Irina Churilova could not
make Fevronya alive, but on her defense I must say that it is difficult to make
an overly innocent and good young girl seem human.
Out of the singers Andrei Popov made a great role as the drunkard Grisha
who becomes insane and his voice suited the role. Vladimir Felyauer as the Tatar
Burundai was also excellent. The other singers were also quite good as singers,
but once-sided characters did not give them a lot of room for emotions. This time the bad guys performed best.
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