It must be admitted that the Bolshoi Theater chose the right position - not to comment on a story that, in any case of opinions, substituted both the name of Mstislav Rostropovich and its own reputation under the scope of biased assessments. And although the resentment of the maestro, as well as the shock in the theater from his act, did not fit into the scale of the lobby and received a corresponding public outcry, the flaring up scandal was hushed up in time. After all, it is known that there are no winners in theatrical wars, and it is pointless to seek on this basis the truth that will satisfy everyone.
The only way to get out of a dark, confusing story was to release a performance on the same dates and with the same cast. In an emergency situation, not a single person from the creative team was changed, and not a single singer, personally selected by maestro Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya at an open casting, left the performance, including the outstanding bass Paata Burchuladze, who was invited to play the role of Kutuzov. For Alexander Vedernikov, who picked up the score a week before the premiere, "War and Peace" had its own nostalgic "string of the soul". In the premiere production of the opera in 1959, in which Galina Vishnevskaya performed Natasha, his father, the famous bass Alexander Vedernikov, sang the part of Kutuzov. In some other dimension, the current "War and Peace" was supposed to become a performance of meetings — generations, times, memories. The final link in the half-century cycle of the life of the Bolshoi Theater, which is now radically changing its "face", and the Prokofiev opera itself, staged here three times by Boris Pokrovsky. The 93-year-old master was supposed to oversee the current project.
But the beautiful idea did not work out, and the performance shown on the New Stage turned out to be the product of a completely new generation.
Director Ivan Popovsky, who has already staged several opera performances at the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center and invited to play War and Peace by Rostropovich, managed to achieve the main thing: not to violate the traditionalist framework of the Tolstoy-Prokofiev epic and at the same time to build a spectacle not overloaded with historical literalism. The task in the conditions of the New Stage was not an easy one. It was necessary to coordinate and accommodate 61 soloists and almost two hundred people of the choir and extras in a small space. The artist Alexander Borovsky proposed a compact and, at first glance, artistically inexpressive vertical structure with retractable platforms that can turn either into a balcony, or into a podium, or into high points of the landscape. In the course of the performance, the ingenious function of this structure was revealed: the extras received a "run-up" to another tier, thereby avoiding the comic effects of pandemonium, and the white color imitated a movie screen, reminiscent of Eisenstein's aesthetics, which certainly influenced Prokofiev's score. Just like, however, the Hollywood standards of the spectacle, which Prokofiev was fascinated by, who once visited the "dream factory".I
van Popovsky, constantly experimenting in the field of form, was able to unfold colorful scenes against the background of this screen, aesthetically referring both to the Napoleonic era, and to the plastic sophisticated line of modernity, and to the totalitarian Kremlin "canon. The empty white screen saved the performance from the details of everyday life, although in the battle scene and rolled the traditional cast-iron cannon (shooting, however, with orchestral "cannonballs"), and the enraged Pierre Bezukhov knocked down Anatole Kuragin with a real chair, shaking Natasha's letters out of him. - Damir Ismagilov, costumes — Angelina Atlagich). The scenes of the world were solved in brownish and empire-marble tones, Kutuzov at headquarters — in warm sunshine, burning Moscow - in bursts of fire, vaguely highlighting the dark mass of people holding the collapsed on their shoulders " "Kremlin" wall. "Mir" was built through dance, through the frozen beauty of "picturesque" groups, reminiscent of the unpretentious entertainments of landowner life forgotten in time.
But the center of trials by war and peace were the characters brought to the fore by the "screen". Natasha performed by Ekaterina Shcherbachenko — a debutante who joined the troupe of the Theater named after M. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, surprisingly organically fit into the environment of venerable soloists. Her quivering and graceful Natasha gave birth to associations with Prokofiev's Juliet the girl — a living image of love itself. The sentimental dance of hands, invented by Popovsky for Natasha and Prince Andrei, was interrupted in the delusional scene of the dying Bolkonsky, and the confused Natasha, who had recently waltzed like a mirage of love among the soldiers and militias, now looked with a meaningless look at their victorious songs, at the expressive group of fleeing behind her are the French, wrapped, according to legend, from head to toe with rags and tatters. But the main "duelists" of the performance were Kutuzov — Paata Burchuladze, who sings on the stage of Covent Garden and the Metropolitan, and Napoleon, performed by Boris Statsenko, invited to the production from the Dusseldorf Theater. These two "star" voices set the tone for the performance, where there was practically not a single unsuccessful vocal work. Kutuzov at Burchuladze, not adorned with the traditional black armband, was stern and calm, singing with his signature, rounded sound, the famous "Majestic, in the sun, mother of Russian cities. " Each exit was reminiscent of a prayer that collided with the excited, irritable remarks of Napoleon - Statsenko, reacting with lightning speed to the reports of his officers.
The pace and rhythms of the war, worked out by Prokofiev on the material of "Alexander Nevsky", were set by Alexander Vedernikov, sometimes falling on the audience with a menacing mass of sound, but never once losing balance with the singers. Particularly advantageous for the orchestra was the second part — "War", where Vedernikov managed to masterfully reproduce both "explosive" sound effects, and unwind the rhythms of battle like a spiral, and coordinate the orchestras in the pit and on stage. It remains only to regret that Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya, who were invited to the premiere, have not yet come to see the impressive result of the work, inspired by themselves. After all, it was thanks to them that Moscow received a worthy epic, connected with its own fate and historical memory, a little bitter — in Russian.
Source.
The only way to get out of a dark, confusing story was to release a performance on the same dates and with the same cast. In an emergency situation, not a single person from the creative team was changed, and not a single singer, personally selected by maestro Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya at an open casting, left the performance, including the outstanding bass Paata Burchuladze, who was invited to play the role of Kutuzov. For Alexander Vedernikov, who picked up the score a week before the premiere, "War and Peace" had its own nostalgic "string of the soul". In the premiere production of the opera in 1959, in which Galina Vishnevskaya performed Natasha, his father, the famous bass Alexander Vedernikov, sang the part of Kutuzov. In some other dimension, the current "War and Peace" was supposed to become a performance of meetings — generations, times, memories. The final link in the half-century cycle of the life of the Bolshoi Theater, which is now radically changing its "face", and the Prokofiev opera itself, staged here three times by Boris Pokrovsky. The 93-year-old master was supposed to oversee the current project.
But the beautiful idea did not work out, and the performance shown on the New Stage turned out to be the product of a completely new generation.
Director Ivan Popovsky, who has already staged several opera performances at the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center and invited to play War and Peace by Rostropovich, managed to achieve the main thing: not to violate the traditionalist framework of the Tolstoy-Prokofiev epic and at the same time to build a spectacle not overloaded with historical literalism. The task in the conditions of the New Stage was not an easy one. It was necessary to coordinate and accommodate 61 soloists and almost two hundred people of the choir and extras in a small space. The artist Alexander Borovsky proposed a compact and, at first glance, artistically inexpressive vertical structure with retractable platforms that can turn either into a balcony, or into a podium, or into high points of the landscape. In the course of the performance, the ingenious function of this structure was revealed: the extras received a "run-up" to another tier, thereby avoiding the comic effects of pandemonium, and the white color imitated a movie screen, reminiscent of Eisenstein's aesthetics, which certainly influenced Prokofiev's score. Just like, however, the Hollywood standards of the spectacle, which Prokofiev was fascinated by, who once visited the "dream factory".I
van Popovsky, constantly experimenting in the field of form, was able to unfold colorful scenes against the background of this screen, aesthetically referring both to the Napoleonic era, and to the plastic sophisticated line of modernity, and to the totalitarian Kremlin "canon. The empty white screen saved the performance from the details of everyday life, although in the battle scene and rolled the traditional cast-iron cannon (shooting, however, with orchestral "cannonballs"), and the enraged Pierre Bezukhov knocked down Anatole Kuragin with a real chair, shaking Natasha's letters out of him. - Damir Ismagilov, costumes — Angelina Atlagich). The scenes of the world were solved in brownish and empire-marble tones, Kutuzov at headquarters — in warm sunshine, burning Moscow - in bursts of fire, vaguely highlighting the dark mass of people holding the collapsed on their shoulders " "Kremlin" wall. "Mir" was built through dance, through the frozen beauty of "picturesque" groups, reminiscent of the unpretentious entertainments of landowner life forgotten in time.
But the center of trials by war and peace were the characters brought to the fore by the "screen". Natasha performed by Ekaterina Shcherbachenko — a debutante who joined the troupe of the Theater named after M. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, surprisingly organically fit into the environment of venerable soloists. Her quivering and graceful Natasha gave birth to associations with Prokofiev's Juliet the girl — a living image of love itself. The sentimental dance of hands, invented by Popovsky for Natasha and Prince Andrei, was interrupted in the delusional scene of the dying Bolkonsky, and the confused Natasha, who had recently waltzed like a mirage of love among the soldiers and militias, now looked with a meaningless look at their victorious songs, at the expressive group of fleeing behind her are the French, wrapped, according to legend, from head to toe with rags and tatters. But the main "duelists" of the performance were Kutuzov — Paata Burchuladze, who sings on the stage of Covent Garden and the Metropolitan, and Napoleon, performed by Boris Statsenko, invited to the production from the Dusseldorf Theater. These two "star" voices set the tone for the performance, where there was practically not a single unsuccessful vocal work. Kutuzov at Burchuladze, not adorned with the traditional black armband, was stern and calm, singing with his signature, rounded sound, the famous "Majestic, in the sun, mother of Russian cities. " Each exit was reminiscent of a prayer that collided with the excited, irritable remarks of Napoleon - Statsenko, reacting with lightning speed to the reports of his officers.
The pace and rhythms of the war, worked out by Prokofiev on the material of "Alexander Nevsky", were set by Alexander Vedernikov, sometimes falling on the audience with a menacing mass of sound, but never once losing balance with the singers. Particularly advantageous for the orchestra was the second part — "War", where Vedernikov managed to masterfully reproduce both "explosive" sound effects, and unwind the rhythms of battle like a spiral, and coordinate the orchestras in the pit and on stage. It remains only to regret that Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya, who were invited to the premiere, have not yet come to see the impressive result of the work, inspired by themselves. After all, it was thanks to them that Moscow received a worthy epic, connected with its own fate and historical memory, a little bitter — in Russian.
Source.
Sergei Prokofiev. "War and Peace." The epigraph and fragment of the 1st painting.
War and Peace at the Bolshoi Theater. The production of the famous opera took place
Irina MURAVIEVA,
rg.ru, Dec. 12, 2005
rg.ru, Dec. 12, 2005
