Germany Mussorgsky, Khovanshchina: Soloists, Staatsoper Youngsters’s Refrain (director: Vinzenz Weissenburger), Staatsopernchor Berlin (director: Dani Juris), Staatskapelle Berlin / Simone Younger (conductor). Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 2.6.2024. (MB)
Who writes? In historical past, as in its dramatisation, the query is essential, its reply usually advanced. It’s current, overtly, in Pimen’s chronicle in Boris Godunov, and it takes centre stage, later shifting rightward, leftward, and above in Claus Guth’s new manufacturing of Mussorgsky’s successor work, Khovanshchina for Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden. There may be additionally the fateful – maybe extra so than Marfa, in fortune-telling guise to Prince Golitsky – determine of the scrivener. How a lot, if in any respect, does his writing-for-hire set in course a sequence of unintended, world-historical penalties? Writing may be thought of extra broadly and narrowly, in shut relation to what we now think about to represent a ‘textual content’ — and, after all, studying. At any price, opening within the fashionable Kremlin, a statue of Peter the Nice towering (as, ultimately, would the two-metre-tall historic Peter) over an empty desk, with some goings on however the primary character – in all probability properly – by no means proven, simply because the Romanovs couldn’t be in Mussorgsky’s time. A functionary, seemingly someplace between secretary and researcher, offers historic data on the characters and drama that may unfold, transcribed for us (in German and in English) on screens above the motion. Given the data of Russian historical past Mussorgsky’s drama kind of assumes (although additionally elides), the vanity serves each as framing machine and extra straightforwardly as supply of helpful background — or ought to it’s commentary? Who writes, how and why? The framing isn’t overdone, although; a part of me truly wished extra had been manufactured from it. Guth appears keener to spotlight the work’s fragmentary tendencies, if something drawing consideration to the years handed between acts – themselves Rimsky-Korsakov’s grouping, whose reorganisation has not but been typically accepted – the place Mussorgsky, up to a degree, brings them collectively. Somebody aside from the composer has to jot down right here, in any case, and it’ll in observe show to be greater than a single individual.
If different Romanovs stay offstage, Peter, each as a younger boy and as a co-tsar getting ready to maturity generally watches, striding throughout the stage and (so I used to be informed) additionally from a field above it (although sightlines prevented me and, I presume, a big a part of the viewers from seeing that). In any other case, the motion proceeds on the stage just about as one may ‘count on’. It’s troublesome to think about even essentially the most hardened traditionalist objecting to the costumes – which, together with set designs, is often all such an individual cares about – however they don’t seem to be fetishised. This types, in spite of everything, some form of investigation from the current as to how Peter attained and consolidated energy, eradicating those that may need opposed him. Typically we see on movie pictures from later Russian historical past. I can see the purpose, however I’m not positive they add a lot, particularly within the toppling of a statue of Lenin. (It may nicely be mentioned that the dissolution of the USSR was a disaster for Russia, and never essentially for the explanations Vladimir Putin would say it was, but it surely was unclear how that fitted in right here.) Generic historic crowd scenes have been much less of an issue, presumably intending to indicate the Petrine settlement to be much less conclusive than some would have claimed, although whether or not such doubling of the stage motion is fascinating was lower than fully clear. Likewise, while I feel I can see the purpose of getting Khovansky kill the Persian slaves, in a stylised illustration of the massacre of order, restoration, progress (name it what you’ll), it arguably appears an arbitrary means of doing so.
A firing squad turning brutally on the ‘pardoned’ Streltsy on the finish of the fourth act is a wonderful, correctly harrowing contact, serving each to arrange the best way for the self-immolation of the Outdated Believers within the closing act but in addition, I feel, to recommend these are completely different. Presenting their martyrdom as ‘resistance’, although, appears an unlucky secularism, sadly typical of so many administrators’ incapability to take non secular perception significantly. The concept the up to date ‘undertaking’ breaks down is nice: an nearly Nietzschean view on the alleged ‘makes use of’ of historical past, one may say. The act, although, is actual, shifting, awe-inspiring, but no extra ‘resistance’ as is mostly understood than the martyrdom within the closing scene of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. It’s extra political than that, absolutely an important (and infrequently neglected, maybe intentionally so, not least by Rimsky and his successor Shostakovich) notice of questioning all the Petrine and post-Petrine undertaking of Westernisation. Peter’s troops provoke the apocalypse for some, a far stranger and extra highly effective drama than is allowed right here. On the finish, although, as soon as the Outdated Believers have burned – use of video efficient in conveying the character of the act, if much less so its horror – we return to the trendy Kremlin. If the ‘lesson’ has been deserted as ineffective or at the least unhelpful, what, one may ask, has been the purpose? It nonetheless occurred, one may reply; now we have nonetheless been proven somebody’s document, at the least. And at the least we don’t turn out to be too entangled within the barely embarrassing ‘love story’, which, within the individual of Marfa does its bit to bind issues collectively but is unquestionably slightly too ‘operatic’ for consolation.
There may be, additionally, the query of who compiles, orchestrates, and so forth. Listening to the first-act Prelude in Rimsky’s orchestration, instantly earlier than scripting this, I stay removed from satisfied of the prevalence of Shostakovich’s model of the opera (save for reversing Rimsky’s cuts and orchestrating these further sections). It definitely has its deserves, however so does Rimsky’s, and I can not say I discover it comes nearer on the entire – generally it does; generally it doesn’t – to my fantasy of how Mussorgsky ‘ought to’ sound. Maybe, although, I’m responsible of taking Boris Godunov – and more and more its earliest model, given its latest favour – as a mannequin, when Khovanshchina is a distinct work, somewhat as if one have been to strategy Lulu anticipating it to be Wozzeck. There are additionally, after all, problems with efficiency, whichever model is used. I ought to dearly love at some point to listen to the work of Ravel and Stravinsky in full, however for now at the least we had Stravinsky’s extraordinary ending, in some way extra Mussorgskian even than Mussorgsky, and infinitely more true to any believable view of the work’s dramatic message. (Shostakovich, as Richard Taruskin noticed, not solely ‘ratified Rimsky’s [melioristic] view’ of the Petrine reforms however ‘even managed to strengthen it’. The composer of The Ceremony of Spring confirmed himself higher capable of think about and talk the world of the Outdated Believers.
Such selections have been, I assume, the province of conductor Simone Younger, in all probability in dialogue with Guth. Younger’s personal conducting and the taking part in of the Staatskapelle Berlin have been wonderful all through, the latter sounding as golden because it did clear, and with out loss to precision. All was nicely positioned and nicely balanced. Modifications of metre, the lifeblood of Mussorgsky’s conversational recitative, have been all through so nicely dealt with that one barely seen them as such; they don’t seem to be, in spite of everything, the jolts of Stravinskian neoclassicism, however somewhat based in a speech rhythm very completely different from the German ‘norm’ (and which, after all, proved extremely influential upon the youthful Stravinsky particularly). This occurs vocally, after all, however at the least as a lot within the orchestral ‘accompaniment’ (the Italian accompagnato appears wildly misplaced right here).
Point out of issues Italian brings me to my principal reservation: considered one of style greater than something elementary. Khovanshchina is significantly extra inclined than Boris to extra typical, even Italianate, vocal-melodic writing. This appeared to be the cue to a extra typically Verdian strategy, particularly throughout the first three acts. Parts of Wagner – extra coincidental than the rest, I believe – surfaced on occasion too, as did barely disconcerting kinship with Tchaikovsky. One thing rawer is definitely attainable and, to my ears, extra ‘authentically’ Mussorgskian, textual points however. I mustn’t exaggerate, although, and there might be no doubting both the sincerity or, by itself phrases, the success of Younger’s strategy with the orchestra, nor certainly the heat with which the viewers acquired it.
The solid was wonderful too, headed by a charismatic, characteristically detailed Mika Kares as Ivan Khovansky. Taras Shtonda exuded star high quality in what can hardly be aside from a charismatic function, that of Dosifey, chief of the Outdated Believers. Stephan Rügamer imparted his normal intelligence to the a part of the thwarted reformer Golitsin. (His may, maybe even ought to, have been the higher path, but it surely was to not be.) George Gagnidze’s Shakolvity shone on every of his appearances, not solely his shifting account of Russia’s troubled historical past. Marina Prudenskaya gave all the pieces, returned with curiosity, to an all-encompassing efficiency as Marfa, finely complemented by Evelin Novak’s characterful, tender Lutheran Emma and a spirited Susanna from Anna Samuil. Andrei Popov provided a well-judged Scrivener: one may sympathise with the predicament his lowborn standing introduced and recognize why he may sing in additional noble, even florid model, with out dropping sight of his elementary opportunism. If I felt Najmiddin Mavlyanov’s Andrey at instances rather less sharply drawn, he got here extra into his personal in a while and likewise relished the alternatives a extra Italianate efficiency provided.
Dancers, well-choreographed by Sommer Ulrickson, contributed intelligently to the better drama too. It was, although, the excellent refrain, expertly skilled by Dani Juris, that really topped the efficiency: dramatically, harmonically based mostly, roots in a Russian previous that will or is probably not invented, however definitely got here to life within the right here and now. It was, fairly merely, excellent in each means. Certainly on this work, as in Boris, there’s a elementary lesson on the folks’s struggling to be discovered therein.
Mark Berry
Manufacturing:
Director – Claus Guth
Set designs – Christian Schmidt
Costumes – Ursula Kudrna
Lighting – Olaf Freese
Choreography – Sommer Ulrickson
Video – Roland Horvath
Dwell digital camera – Jan Speckenbach, Marlene Blumert
Dramaturgy – Yvonne Gebauer, Rebecca Graitl
Forged:
Prince Ivan Khovansky – Mika Kares
Prince Andrey Khovansky – Najmiddin Mavlyanov
Prince Vasily Golitsin – Stephan Rügamer
Boyar Fyodor Shaklovity – George Gagnidze
Dosifey – Taras Shtonda
Marfa – Marina Prudenskaya
Emma – Evelin Novak
Scrivener – Andrei Popov
Susanna – Anna Samuil
Varsonofyev – Roman Trekel
Kuzka – Andrés Moreno García
Streshnev – Johan Krogius
Two Streltsy – Taehan Kim, Friedrich Hamel
Henchman – Dmitri Plotnikov
