Giuseppe Verdi - Il Corsaro
Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, 2018
Fabio Biondi, Nicola Raab, Michael Fabiano, Kristina Mkhitaryan, Oksana Dyka, Vito Priante, Evgeny Stavinsky
OperaVision - 8th April 2018
The
quality of early Verdi operas is variable, even by the composers own
admission, but some are certainly worth of occasional revival, even if
it's just for curiosity value. A few - very few, maybe only one
(Macbeth) - are worthy of being included more often as part of the
familiar Verdi canon, others are crude and forgettable (Alzira, Attila),
some are flawed but redeemable through a good production and an
interesting interpretation (I Due Foscari, Stiffelio, Giovanna d'Arco,
Luisa Miller). Il Corsaro probably belongs in the latter category, but
its qualities can be enhanced with a good staging and exceptional
singing and the 2018 Valencia production goes some way towards
demonstrating and achieving that.
It's rare however that
you can do anything redeemable with the staging of any early Verdi
opera; which in the main consist of romantic melodramas in oppressive
wartime situations that don't have much in the way of subtext, nuance or
depth. The singing, particularly that of the lead soprano role, can
also be extremely challenging far beyond the merits of the piece without
really adding to the drama. That's all part of the Verdi DNA however
that comes into fruition mid-career, and it can be fascinating to
explore the hints already there of the greatness to come if you have a
production good enough to tease them out.
The first good
sign in the Valencia production is that there's a bit of imagination and
style applied to the production design rather than literal slavishness
to the libretto's locations. Instead of ship anchored at a Greek island
where the chief corsair Corrado is languishing in exile and reduced to
piracy, we find ourselves in Act I within the mind of a broken man,
sitting at writing desk remembering better times or dreaming of taking
part in further exploits. His wife Medora looks on in despair at his
downfall and, alarmed at the flask of what may be laudanum he is
imbibing, she slips it into her pocket.
Corrado however
has other vices and is clearly not adverse to a pipe of opium. In his
mind the Ottoman Empire still a threat, so in Act II the bold Byronic
adventurer once more visits the exotic East of delights and dangers.
There he visits a harem and attracts the attention of Gulnara, the
favourite of the Pasha Seid. Seid and his warriors launch into a battle
with the corsairs, putting the city and the harem to flame. Corrado
rescues Gulnara from the conflagration and is captured while doing so,
and earns the mercy of Seid. Until Seid becomes suspicious of Gulnara's
feelings for this brave corsair...
There's no need to get
to clever with the concept, but there's no need for literal realism
either, as combined with Verdi's bombast, the Byronic hero's romantic
adventures in the exotic East could seem a little bit over the top. Il
Corsaro is tremendous fun, but not particularly memorable and hard for a
modern audience to take seriously. Director Nicola Raab doesn't try to
get too clever by imposing an unworkable concept on top of what is a
fairly straightforward romantic adventure, and without betraying the
original spirit of the work she finds a good way of making it a little
more 'realistic' or relatable by playing it out as an opium-induced
flight of imagination, which as it was originally written by Lord Byron
it may well have been.
The production doesn't need a
literal depiction that takes it all seriously and literally then.
There's more than enough dynamic in the music and the contrasts and
colours that lie between East and West, between Christian and Muslim,
between men and women. Verdi of course depicts all that in grand brush
strokes, all sword and flame, blood and thunder, gods and demons.
There's nothing wishy-washy about early Verdi (or middle or late Verdi
either, I suppose), and Fabio Biondi's conducting of the Orquestra de la
Comunitat Valenciana emphasises the sheer brio with which Verdi attacks
the material, where there is also at least some measure of
sophistication in the melodies and romantic sentiments.
There's a similar contrast between
imagination and reality in George Souglides's production design that
shows this flitting between dreams of adventure and the sudden
down-to-earth shifts of reality that seep in. Projections of battles and
flames are thrown onto a screen that is torn down like a sheet of
paper, emphasising that it's all the projection of a troubled mind,
allowing it to be taken seriously but not literally. It's a good
middle-way to approach early Verdi, giving us spectacle and
entertainment and permitting all the spirit of the work to come through
without having to look at it ironically or indulgently. That's probably
about the best you can hope for in Il Corsaro.
Well, that
and some great singing, as that can make all the difference. The
Valencia production gets off to a terrific start, the clever production
design and the invigorating score matched by a committed Michael Fabiano
in the role of Corrado and Kristina Mkhitaryan as his wife Medora. As
he showed in Dmitri Tcherniakov's radical reworking of Carmen for
Aix-en-Provence 2017, Fabiano isn't thrown by contradictions between
characters who are seen to be role-playing and allows a touch of
bewilderment creep into the heroic sincerity of the performance.
Mkhitaryan is mightily impressive as Medora, showing a fullness of voice
and a deep emotional expression. Medora however is not the principal
soprano role, and it's Oksana Dyka who has to struggle with that
challenge as Gulnara. Inevitably she is pushed and her pitch wavers
occasionally, but it's a valiant effort. Vito Priante sings well but
throwing pantomime villain poses he is unable to make much of the role
of Seid.
The singing performances and the full-on musical
performance under Fabio Biondi carry the work though the dramatic
weaknesses of Act III. There's a long scene of Corrado refusing to
accept Gulnara's help of escape ("Fly from your prison to freedom, my
soul") by manfully accepting his fate only to eventually agree, but as
Corrado puffs on his opium pipe, the production does well to try to
associate his behaviour as being captive of his addiction or the
affliction of his desires and fears. Medora is also saddled with more
despairing sentiments that lead up to her suicide and Corrado following,
but there's no denying that Verdi provides all the thrills and spills
that lead up to this heroic-romantic conclusion, and Biondi hammers it
home.
Links: Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, OperaVision
Alexander Borodin - Prince Igor
The Metropolitan Opera, New York - 2014
Gianandrea Noseda, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Ildar Abdrazakov, Oksana Dyka, Mikhail Petrenko, Sergey Semishkur, Vladimir Ognovenko, Andrey Popov, Anita Rachvelishvili, Štefan Kocán, Kiri Deonarine, Mikhail Vekua, Barbara Dever
The Met Live in HD - 1st March 2014
Thank goodness for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Not only are we only really starting to appreciate his own contribution to Russian opera in the west through wider productions of The Tsar's Bride, Sadko, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and of course, The Golden Cockerel, but it's in many ways due to the enormous contribution and efforts of Rimsky-Korsakov that we are able to appreciate the legacy of other great Russian composers who came before him whose epic works might otherwise have been forgotten, neglected and, in many cases it seems remained incomplete. Hence we have Rimsky-Korsakov's editions of Mussorgsky's unfinished Khovanshchina and his reworking of the full version of the magisterial Boris Godunov. What is it with these Russian composers and their unfinished epic masterworks?
It's also in no small part due to Rimsky-Korsakov, along with Alexander Glazunov, that Borodin's only opera Prince Igor exists in any kind of a performing edition. Having worked on the opera for 18 years, the work was however left uncompleted at the time of Borodin's death in 1887. Much of the epic undertaking of the opera, based on an historical account of Prince Igor's 12th century military campaign against the nomadic Polovtsian tribe, had indeed been written by the composer as whole scenes, but there was little dramatically to link them or even place the scenes into any kind of order. But for Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov's work, Prince Igor would probably not have been heard at all in the last century, and if you've ever heard Prince Igor you would realise what a tremendous loss that would have been. Even then however, the work still remained a series of bold scenes, with very little dramatic structure or meaning.
Thank goodness then for Dmitri Tcherniakov. A controversial director, one who fearlessly takes chances with bold modernised reinterpretations of works, Tcherniakov is however an important and instrumental figure in bringing working stage productions of rare Russian repertoire to the west, introducing Prokofiev's The Gambler and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride in the last decade for The Berlin Staatsoper, and most recently putting together a revelatory production of The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh for De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam. If ever there was a work that needed the sense of purpose and meaning that a dramatic interpretation can give it, it's Prince Igor. Using only Borodin's compositions, including music from the composer's other works, Tcherniakov has created a radical new dramatic context for the work, and the result, seen on the Met stage and broadcast to cinemas across the world in HD, is as close to an authentic representation of this remarkable work as we've seen.
What the opera gains under Tcherniakov's version of Prince Igor is that it manages to place Igor himself at the centre of the work, while retaining all of the exotic colour of the Polovtsian scenes and choruses, and contrast it with the dramatic developments and the tragedy of the Putivl sections. After the patriotic fervour of the Prologue, for example, the battle with Khan Konchak having been lost in the interim, the captive Igor becomes a secondary figure in Act I, reduced to the background for a sequence of episodes that seem to bear little relation to the dramatic development of the story, involving a romance between Konchakovna and Vladimir Igorevich (Igor's son who has been killed in battle) and of course the famous Polovtsian folk dances. Tcherniakov however, using Alexander Sokurov-like film interludes, makes all of these incidents part of Igor's fevered dreams, having been wounded in battle, making a personal discovery in them and finding a route to happiness and fulfilment, but also realising where his responsibility to his people lies.
Like Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, it's important to get past all the musical set-pieces, the heavy choral arrangements and the strident delivery and make Prince Igor a credible character, a real person whose actions in the 12th century can be understood by people today and not just appear as some iconic Russian historical figure. Tcherniakov's storytelling brings this out well, contrasting the idyllic scenes of Act I with the horror of the fate that is to befall Putivl in the powerfully staged Act II under the drunken exploits of Prince Galitsky and his men, and under the plotting of Skula and Yeroshka. Even in his absence, Igor's authority, his ability to rule and control the nation remains central, while the more human side of his personality is brought out at the start of Act III in Yaroslavna's deeply emotion longing for her husband who she believes has died in captivity.
In addition to the dramatic and musical reworking, the other essential element for a successful Prince Igor is the singing. Russian singers are absolutely essential here, not just to handle the difficulties of language, but for the very specific tone and the stamina required. Each of the main roles have long passages of Wagnerian-like demands that require enormous control and stamina. Ildar Abdrazakov is well-known at the Met for popular roles in Italian opera but has not had much experience of the Russian repertoire. He proves he's more than capable of it here and is simply extraordinary in the role of Igor, totally convincing as a character and as a singer in this important role, commanding in the Prologue, visionary in Act I and inspirational in Act III.
There are no weaknesses anywhere else in the cast. Mikhail Petrenko exudes charm and menace as Galistsky and effortlessly carries much of Act II. Oksana Dyka has considerable challenges but impresses as Yaroslavna, her mezzo-soprano not as rich and smooth as we are accustomed to, but it's so right in the Russian repertoire. There aren't many tenors to be found among all the deeper bass-baritone range of most of the male roles in Prince Igor, which only makes the qualities of Sergey Semishkur's Vladimir all the more apparent. Anita Rachvelishvili has been a little bit shrill and inconsistent in some other roles I've seen her in, but here singing in the Russian style as Konchakovna, she is marvellous. Štefan Kocán's incredible control in the deepest notes of the bass register have been noted before playing Sparafucile in the Met's Rigoletto last year, and that's demonstrated again here in the rich beauty of his timbre singing the role of Khan Konchak.
The chorus of course have an important part to play throughout Prince Igor, and the demands placed on the Metropolitan Opera chorus are therefore considerable. Aside from managing a chorus of 120 singers, and the difficulties of learning the parts for a work of this scale in the Russian language and bringing them all together, there are also very specific requirements that need to be met to make them work. Chorus Master, Donald Palumbo, describes those as the tenors needing to be brighter and more metallic, sopranos being "a little fruitier", and mezzos really singing contralto. The way these elements are brought together is important in order to achieve that necessary sound world that is so distinctive in Borodin's Prince Igor, and that impact is clearly felt. On every level, with important contributions from all involved, this proves to be a stunning production of a major work.
