Accatonia: Russian

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vendredi 10 septembre 2010

The Miserly Knight - Sergei Rachmaninov (2008)

Vladimir Jurowski conducts Rachmaninov's dark setting of Alexander Pushkin's little tragedy with an outstanding performance from Sergei Leiferkus in the role written for the great Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin. Rachmaninov's dramatically brooding score, beautifully recorded in an atmospheric surround sound, portrays the miser consumed by the power of his glinting gold, as it pushes him to his ultimate collapse...

Albert, farouche jeune jouteur se plaint de l'avarice de son père, qui lui interdit de renouveler son matériel pour pouvoir participer au prochain tournoi. Il est le fils d'un homme riche mais il est condamné à vivre pauvrement, jusqu'à l'excès, par l'avarice de son père. Un prêteur sur gage lui propose de l'argent, mais Albert ne peut proposer aucune garantie en échange. L'homme lui laisse entendre qu'un discret empoisonnement le rendrait maître de la forune de son père. Mais Albert horrifié refuse et chasse l'homme de chez lui, le menaçant de mort : il n'aime pas son père, mais ne peut concevoir d'en venir au crime parricide....

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mardi 17 août 2010

Boris Godunov-Modest Mussorgsky (2002)

Mussorgsky's opera BORIS GODUNOV is not for the faint of heart in any way! The story deals with the deception and treachery of Boris Godunov, a government minister in Russia in the early 1600s who becomes ruler when the reigning Czar he is serving dies, and then has the rightful heir to the throne, a young boy, murdered, thus assuring his ascent to power. Boris is eventually afflicted with guilt and goes mad. Mussorgsky's music is glorious, and there are lighter elements in the story line, but "Boris Godunov" is an opera with deep psychological and political meanings and lessons to be learned. This does not create the light-hearted mood of Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" or Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte", for example. I cannot propose this opera without saying that it's completely false, historically speaking and that Godunov was demonized by the historians of the Roumanov as the last great Tsar of the previous dynasty but opera is and will always remain a fiction, we have to keep it in our minds.

Dans la pièce (qui n'est pas fidèle à l'Histoire) Boris devient tsar après avoir fait assassiner l'enfant Dmitri, l'héritier légitime. Bien que Boris gouverne humainement, le pays sombre dans le chaos et la pauvreté. Un jeune moine vagabond, Grigori, se fait passer pour Dmitri et réussit à épouser Marina, une femme noble originaire de Pologne qui déguise sa volonté de puissance en amour passionné. Après avoir convaincu le roi de Pologne de sa légitimité, le faux Dmitri convainc les Polonais d'envahir la Russie. Boris, bourrelé de culpabilité et de remords et hanté par des hallucinations, sombre dans la folie et meurt en implorant la grâce divine.

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jeudi 29 juillet 2010

Le Rossignol - Igor Stravinsky (2005)

L'action se déroule à la Cour impériale de Chine en des temps fabuleux. Une forêt en bord de mer, la nuit. Un pêcheur dans son bateau écoute le magnifique chant du rossignol. Des courtisans arrivent et invitent le rossignol à chanter devant l'empereur de Chine. L'oiseau accepte....

The setting is ancient China. The fisherman (tenor) acts as commentator on the story's events. At the seashore just before sunrise, a fisherman hears the song of the nightingale, which causes him to forget his troubles. The cook (soprano) has brought officials from the court of the Emperor to hear the nightingale (soprano), telling of the beauty of its singing. However, the nightingale is nowhere to be heard. The court chamberlain (baritone) promises the cook a position as private cook to the Emperor, if she can find the nightingale. The nightingale does finally appear, and receives an invitation from the cook and the chamberlain to sing for the Emperor. The nightingale accepts the invitation, but says that its sweetest song is in the forest....

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jeudi 22 juillet 2010

Eugene Onegin - Tchaikovsky (2008)

Recorded at the 2007 Salzburg Festival, this production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin features an excellent, young cast and the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by maestro Daniel Barenboim. Director Andrea Breth has created an intimate production that mines the depths of expression and charisma of her singer-actors and integrates silent secondary episodes and miniature dramas to heighten the intensity of the story. The title role--a tour de force for any baritone--is taken by Peter Mattei, who starred as Figaro in the Metropolitan Opera's HD Live Broadcast of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. He is joined by dazzling young Russian soprano Anna Samuil, a protégée of Daniel Barenboim who has been acclaimed as a vibrant new presence on the opera stage. The opera includes a wonderful performance from the young tenor, Joseph Kaiser, recently acclaimed for perfomances at The Met opposite Anna Netrebko in Roméo et Juliette, as well as a solid contribution from bass Ferruccio Furlanetto. The DVD has been filmed in HD, with 5.1 DTS surround sound and PCM stereo.

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samedi 10 juillet 2010

Sadko - Rimsky-Korsakov (2006)

The late Mehta once called SADKO the most beautiful opera ever written. He was probably right as the opera is a hymn to the sea, love, adventure and romance. It is saturated with the most gorgeous music. The immortal Song of India is just the crowning jewel in this rich tapestry.

We are magically transported from the ancient city of Novgorod to an enchanted lake to a kingdom under seas and back again to Novgorod. Visually, this must be the most gorgeous opera, now available on DVD. Forget television, the latest news and the chores of today for three hours of enjoyment and fantasy.

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Anyone has the Sheherezade ballet on DVD, please post it.

lundi 21 juin 2010

Eugene Onegin- Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, this production of Eugene Onegin was the centerpiece of the European Union Opera's inaugural program. Director Nikolaus Lehnhoff's production moves from a sunny first scene, carefree in the Russian country summer, all in whites and pale gold, to the black intensity of the St. Petersburg reception, a society tightly corseted, the polonaise seething with repressed emotion. Along the way, Tatyana's imaginative day-dreaming transforms into grim reality. In the letter scene, romantic novels are clearly a part of her bedroom; afterwards, the bookcase, though present awhile on stage, gradually sinks out of sight beneath the floor. Come the duel, a great white sheet draped across the stage blanks out everything that has been seen so far, before the black despair of the final scene. In the pit, conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky electrifies Onegin with a Russian's passion.

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Plot:

Eugene Onegin, a Russian dandy who is bored with life, inherits a country mansion from his uncle. When he moves to the country, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with the minor poet Vladimir Lensky. One day, Lensky takes Onegin to dine with the family of his fiancée Olga Larina. At this meeting, Olga's bookish sister, Tatyana (Tanya), falls in love with Onegin. That night, Tatyana writes a letter to Onegin professing her love and sends it to him. While this is something a heroine in one of Tatyana's French novels would have done, Russian society would consider it inappropriate for a young, unmarried girl to take the initiative. Contrary to her expectations, Onegin does not reply by letter. The two meet on his next visit where he rejects her advances in a speech that has been described as tactful yet condescending.

Later, Lensky nonchalantly invites Onegin to Tatyana's name day celebration promising a small gathering with just Tatyana, her sister, and her parents. When Onegin arrives, he finds instead a grandiose ball reminiscent of the fast-paced world he has grown tired of. To exact revenge on Lensky, Onegin proceeds to flirt and dance with Olga. Lensky leaves in a rage, and in the morning issues a challenge to Onegin to fight a duel. At the duel Onegin kills Lensky, then flees.

Tatyana visits Onegin's mansion where she reads through his books and the notes in the margins, and through this comes to believe that Onegin's character is merely a collage of different literary heroes, and so there is no "real Onegin." Later, Tanya is taken to Moscow and introduced to society. In this new environment, Tanya matures to such an extent that when Onegin later meets her in St. Petersburg, he fails to recognise her. When he realises who she is he tries to win her affection despite the fact that she is now married, but his advances are rebuffed. He writes her several letters but receives no reply. The book ends when Onegin manages to see Tanya and is once again rejected in a speech where she admits both her love for him and the absolute loyalty she nevertheless has for her husband. In echoing the speech he previously gave her, she also demonstrates her emotional and moral superiority to Onegin.

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Boris Godunov-Modest Mussorgsky (2004)

This 1954 film adaptation of Boris Godunov is one of the most successful of Russian operatic films. It deftly streamlines the story of the Russain Tsar whose regime and life are threatened by the false Dimitri, a pretender to the throne. Director Vera Stroyeva's apprpach to the opera is distinctly cinematic. Her atmospheric handling of the crowd scenes, juxtaposed with startling close-ups, is strongly reminiscent of the work of her celebrated predecessor, Sergei Eisenstein.

The production is dominated by Alexander Pirogov in the title role. In the tradition of the greatest of Russian bassos, Pirogov delivers a magnificently sung performance with a keen dramatic edge. Georgi Nelepp as the False Dimitri and Ivan Kozlovsky as the Simpleton add strong characterizations to this compelling version of Mussorgsky's masterpiece.

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