Helsinki Contemporary opera festival showed after several Covid related postponements an Opera Fortis production, the opera “Black Monk” by Finnish composer Pehr Henrik Nordgren. It was composed in 1981, but it hasn’t been performed that often, so again this was an opera that I had been really looking forward to.
The opera takes place in Russia and the libretto is made by
the composer himself based on a novella by Anton Chekhov. The story begins,
when Andrey Kovrin (baritone Kristian Lindroos) has come to the countryside to
visit his friend Yegor (tenor Pekka Kuivalainen) to recover from overwork. He
falls in love with Yegor’s daughter Tanya (soprano Johanna Isokoski) and they
marry. Unfortunately, Kovrin is haunted by visions of a black monk, who praises
his intelligence and says that it can save the whole world. Stirred up by the
monk Kovrin works insanely day and night on his scientific work. Tanya notices
that her husband has fallen ill and forces him to hospital. Kovrin sort of
recovers, but he is bitter that he has been forced to abandon his work. Yegor
dies and his beloved fruit garden falls into the hands of strangers. Kovrin
also dies of tuberculosis and even on his deathbed he sees the black monk.
So, the story of the opera is rather mystic in a Russian sort
of way. Director Ville Saukkonen used rather traditional solutions in the
direction, but it suited this opera well. The music was interesting, and I
liked it a lot. Lindroos was an excellent Kovrin; he sang superbly and acted
wonderfully. Johanna Isokoski also made a good impression as Tanya. Having
within a short while heard super modern opera a couple of times, “Black Monk”
was a great reminder of the fact that even modern opera music can be fully
understandable and even easily approachable for laymen.
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