Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - The Tale of Tsar Saltan
La Monnaie-De Munt, 2019
Alain Altinoglu, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Svetlana Aksenova, Bogdan Volkov, Olga Kulchynska, Ante Jerkunica, Stine Marie Fischer, Bernarda Bobro, Carole Wilson, Vasily Gorshkov, Alexander Vassiliev, Nicky Spence, Alexander Kravets
La Monnaie steaming - June 2019
The Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov has lately been viewing opera in the context of therapy, in productions like Carmen, Pelléas et Mélisande and Les Troyens, the intention always clearly to delve more deeply into the works and explore their underlying themes. The results have been to varying levels of success and suitability for their subjects, but with Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tale of Tsar Saltan, the director is on much more familiar ground, in Russian opera where some of his best work has been achieved.
The idea of exploring the underlying psychology of works actually has a two-fold purpose, perhaps even three in the case of The Tale of Tsar Saltan. One is to bring less familiar Russian classics to the attention of a modern western audience who may be less enamoured of fairy-tales and make them accessible. The second is indeed to delve into the subtext of the fairy tale, and - when considered as being a technique used widely by this director - the third is to show perhaps that opera is indeed a kind of therapy in its own right, reaching out and communicating on a non-verbal level through music and dramatic subtext.
In the La Monnaie production of The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Dmitri Tcherniakov adds a modern-day real-world framing device around the fairy tale that doesn't so much put the magical fantasy at a distance as bring us closer to it. (This is something that Romeo Castellucci has also been doing to powerful effect in the mythology of Orphée et Eurydice and the monumentally fantastical The Magic Flute). Here the fairy story is told to a young boy with autism. He has never seen his father and doesn't understand why his parents are estranged, so his mother tells him The Tale of Tsar Saltan, finding that the only way of reaching him is through the toy soldiers and magical tales that so enchant him, hoping to communicate the truth through the fable, casting herself as the tsarina.
The characteristics of Pushkin's fairy tale are familiar, his mother suffering a kind of Cinderella upbringing, abused by her mother and two wicked sisters. When they are presented to the tsar who is looking for a bride her sisters can only promise extravagant weddings while the youngest girl - a humble seamstress - promises she can deliver a worthy heir for the tsar. And becoming tsarina she does, but on the birth of the child her disgruntled sisters intercept the messenger and the tsar is informed that that the tsarina has given birth to a monster. To the astonishment of the villagers on this occasion for happiness and celebration, a message returns from the tsar saying that his wife and child should be thrown into the sea in a barrel.
Mythology and fairy tales traditionally have an important role to play in putting an important message across to a wide audience in a way that can endure for centuries, and opera can be seen to fulfil the same function. More than just musical drama for entertainment, and certainly more than being a singing contest to debate over who sings roles best, opera at its best and most meaningful - like Die Zauberflöte cited above - communicates something essential about our understanding of the world and of humanity's place within it, along with all the joys and troubles that come with it.
Tcherniakov's production of Tsar Saltan is a way of finding a route back to the underlying meaning of the work and to some extent necessarily reinterpreting it for a new age. The fairy tale and the opera are essentially about the loss of innocence of a child struggling to come to terms with the reality of the world. The realisation that it can be cruel, unfair and unjust needs to be reconciled with an awareness that life itself is a miracle, and that it can still be possible to find good within it. Using an autistic child allows the audience a way of seeing the 'magic' in the fairy tale of existence again.
In fact watching the opera in this way the concept is so good and the performances so impressive that it feels completely natural and authentic, as if this is the only way to see the opera and you couldn't imagine it being done any differently. And it's hard to imagine a more traditional representation being as profoundly moving as the progression and resolution that Tcherniakov devises for it, which - very much in line with truth and reality - doesn't mean that there is necessarily a happy ending to the fairy tale, much as one might wish for it.
There's much more that needs to be done to make this more than just a clever idea and Tcherniakov's production design is perfectly up to the task. It starts with a plain wood panelling background, mother and child playing together enveloped in a dull reality. As the story is related, the narrative magic exerts its influence and begins to take over, first populated by characters in cross-hatched puffy costumes (similar to David Hockney's designs for the famous Glyndebourne production of A Rake's Progress), with sketchy animation gradually drawing the boy/Gvidon into the swan's womb-like world of security. The blending and balance of ugly reality with animated magical fantasy is masterful.
There are of course other benefits to be gained from Dmitri Tcherniakov introducing a work well-known only in Russia in such an effective manner to western Europe, and primarily that's permitting us to enjoy Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's beautiful orchestration and melodic flair - the Flight of the Bumblebee originating from this work - perfectly attuned to the dramatic and emotional core of the story, overflowing with glorious choruses. These are all very much essential Russian opera characteristics of course and brought out marvellously by Alain Altinoglu conducting the orchestra of La Monnaie.
Just as wondrous are the singing performances since Rimsky-Korsakov's vocal writing can be underestimated in favour of his considerable fame as an orchestrator. Svetlana Aksenova as the mother/tsarina and Bogdan Volkov as the boy/Gvidon are just incredible with the kind of Russian voices needed here; strong in delivery, but filled with warmth and passion and a little bit of an edge of bordering on despair. This is another outstanding, imaginative production from Tcherniakov, Altinoglu and La Monnaie, every element working perfectly in service of the opera, recognising the extraordinary ability of the medium to communicate on so many levels, and using them all brilliantly.
Links: La Monnaie-De Munt
