<Translated from Italian automatically>
Last night was the debut at the Comunale in Cagliari of Prokofiev's forgotten melodrama. A grand fresco directed by Yuri Alexandrov.
CAGLIARI. Opening, the curtain shows a train already derailed at departure. What is it a metaphor for? The failed Soviet regime? Any totalitarian system? Ideological passions, all revolutions, and any political dilettantism? Be that as it may, this was the choice of the director Yuri Alexandrov, realized by Semyon Pastukh, for the set design of Prokofiev's "Semyon Kotko", the opera which yesterday at the Comunale inaugurated both the IX Sant'Efisio Festival and the new opera and ballet season of the Lirico, broadcast live on Euroradio on Rai RadioTre, and whose proceeds will be donated in favour of the Abruzzo region.
Everything thus seems to unfold on an intricate tangle of tracks. The intertwining of life and death among the various characters overlaps perfectly with this. But the elements that intersect are many: love and hate, patriotism and betrayal, courage and cowardice, honour and dishonour, humour and tragedy.
Meanwhile, events always advance with an insistent rhythm, similar to a locomotive.
Perhaps not by chance, Alexandrov even decided to recreate domestic environments inside a carriage. In short, as Kundera would say, "no one can get off the train of History". And so it happens for the peasant Semyon who, having finished his military service, returns to his village and reacts to the German occupation that occurred in Ukraine in 1918, becoming a partisan and defeating both enemies and Russian collaborators.
With all this intersects, like the rails in the set design, the love story between Semyon and Sofja, hindered by her father Tkachenko, who wants to give her in marriage to the landowner Klembovsky.
It was in 1936, just returned to Russia, that Prokofiev (also Ukrainian) began to work on a new subject, drawn from the novel "I am a son of the working people" by Valentin Kataev. With the latter he wrote the libretto, simultaneously accepting the advice of a friend and skilled man of the theatre, Vsevolod Meyerhold who, arrested and killed for his aesthetic positions (deemed anti-socialist), could not direct the opera's debut, held in '40. In effect, the opposing ideas of Kataev and Meyerhold also intersected: the former wanted a traditional-style melodrama, thinking of Verdi or Bizet; the latter suggested a more symphonic and prosaic, more realistic and fluid cut, which would not break the action into arias and recitatives.
Prokofiev, keeping Meyerhold in mind, finally created a quite fluid "montage", thus obtaining a sense of lively continuity: 48 short scenes (each no longer than two or three minutes), grouped into 7 tableaux and 5 acts. The result, as noted well by Francesco Lora in the programme notes, is of a "twentieth-century and cinematic cut, rather than nineteenth-century and melodramatic".
For this production, co-produced with the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Alexander Vedernikov is on the podium of the Lirico. His is a brilliant direction, with flamboyant colours, which splendidly emphasizes timbric and phrasing contrasts, especially when Prokofiev plays on the superimposition-juxtaposition of dialogues and events, creating a true polyphony of dramatic action.
The cast is rather good. The Semyon of Mikhail Gubsky, with his ringing and clear voice, is able to act with balance, therefore exquisitely "human". Captivating and humorous is the Sofja of Tatiana Pavlovskaya, sensual in voice, curious at times in her undisciplined gestures, almost like a tomboy. Pompous and thundering, as is right, the Tkachenko of the bass Gennady Bezzubenkov, with a full and tumultuous vocal quality, knows how to hold the stage very well.
Also convincing then were Olga Savova in the role of Frosja, Semyon's sister, rendered as a pure and virtuous maiden; or the Ljubka of Irina Loskutova, stupendous in the sequence of the obsessive, hallucinated lament in which she mourns the death of Carëv, interpreted by a discreet Viktor Chernomortsev. The Chorus of the Lirico, prepared by Fulvio Fogliazza, also gave an excellent performance, especially in the two grandiose finales of the third and fifth acts.
Reruns will be on April 24, 26, 28, 30, and May 2 and 4.
In the stalls foyer of the Comunale, until June 7, music enthusiasts will also be able to visit the interesting visual arts exhibition «Piccolo Atlante della Sardegna» (Small Atlas of Sardinia) The Soddu-Tanda collection, an organic and articulated exhibition path of a part of the collection currently owned by the Municipality of Benetutti. It is a matter of contemporary Sardinian artworks, created by different artists from Leonardo Boscani to Aldo Tilocca, Pastorello, Pietro Sedda, Gaetano Brundu, Josephine Sassu, Rosanna Rossi, Ermanno Leinardi and Maria Lai.
Would you like more information on any of the artists or the exhibition mentioned here?
Source.
Last night was the debut at the Comunale in Cagliari of Prokofiev's forgotten melodrama. A grand fresco directed by Yuri Alexandrov.
CAGLIARI. Opening, the curtain shows a train already derailed at departure. What is it a metaphor for? The failed Soviet regime? Any totalitarian system? Ideological passions, all revolutions, and any political dilettantism? Be that as it may, this was the choice of the director Yuri Alexandrov, realized by Semyon Pastukh, for the set design of Prokofiev's "Semyon Kotko", the opera which yesterday at the Comunale inaugurated both the IX Sant'Efisio Festival and the new opera and ballet season of the Lirico, broadcast live on Euroradio on Rai RadioTre, and whose proceeds will be donated in favour of the Abruzzo region.
Everything thus seems to unfold on an intricate tangle of tracks. The intertwining of life and death among the various characters overlaps perfectly with this. But the elements that intersect are many: love and hate, patriotism and betrayal, courage and cowardice, honour and dishonour, humour and tragedy.
Meanwhile, events always advance with an insistent rhythm, similar to a locomotive.
Perhaps not by chance, Alexandrov even decided to recreate domestic environments inside a carriage. In short, as Kundera would say, "no one can get off the train of History". And so it happens for the peasant Semyon who, having finished his military service, returns to his village and reacts to the German occupation that occurred in Ukraine in 1918, becoming a partisan and defeating both enemies and Russian collaborators.
With all this intersects, like the rails in the set design, the love story between Semyon and Sofja, hindered by her father Tkachenko, who wants to give her in marriage to the landowner Klembovsky.
It was in 1936, just returned to Russia, that Prokofiev (also Ukrainian) began to work on a new subject, drawn from the novel "I am a son of the working people" by Valentin Kataev. With the latter he wrote the libretto, simultaneously accepting the advice of a friend and skilled man of the theatre, Vsevolod Meyerhold who, arrested and killed for his aesthetic positions (deemed anti-socialist), could not direct the opera's debut, held in '40. In effect, the opposing ideas of Kataev and Meyerhold also intersected: the former wanted a traditional-style melodrama, thinking of Verdi or Bizet; the latter suggested a more symphonic and prosaic, more realistic and fluid cut, which would not break the action into arias and recitatives.
Prokofiev, keeping Meyerhold in mind, finally created a quite fluid "montage", thus obtaining a sense of lively continuity: 48 short scenes (each no longer than two or three minutes), grouped into 7 tableaux and 5 acts. The result, as noted well by Francesco Lora in the programme notes, is of a "twentieth-century and cinematic cut, rather than nineteenth-century and melodramatic".
For this production, co-produced with the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Alexander Vedernikov is on the podium of the Lirico. His is a brilliant direction, with flamboyant colours, which splendidly emphasizes timbric and phrasing contrasts, especially when Prokofiev plays on the superimposition-juxtaposition of dialogues and events, creating a true polyphony of dramatic action.
The cast is rather good. The Semyon of Mikhail Gubsky, with his ringing and clear voice, is able to act with balance, therefore exquisitely "human". Captivating and humorous is the Sofja of Tatiana Pavlovskaya, sensual in voice, curious at times in her undisciplined gestures, almost like a tomboy. Pompous and thundering, as is right, the Tkachenko of the bass Gennady Bezzubenkov, with a full and tumultuous vocal quality, knows how to hold the stage very well.
Also convincing then were Olga Savova in the role of Frosja, Semyon's sister, rendered as a pure and virtuous maiden; or the Ljubka of Irina Loskutova, stupendous in the sequence of the obsessive, hallucinated lament in which she mourns the death of Carëv, interpreted by a discreet Viktor Chernomortsev. The Chorus of the Lirico, prepared by Fulvio Fogliazza, also gave an excellent performance, especially in the two grandiose finales of the third and fifth acts.
Reruns will be on April 24, 26, 28, 30, and May 2 and 4.
In the stalls foyer of the Comunale, until June 7, music enthusiasts will also be able to visit the interesting visual arts exhibition «Piccolo Atlante della Sardegna» (Small Atlas of Sardinia) The Soddu-Tanda collection, an organic and articulated exhibition path of a part of the collection currently owned by the Municipality of Benetutti. It is a matter of contemporary Sardinian artworks, created by different artists from Leonardo Boscani to Aldo Tilocca, Pastorello, Pietro Sedda, Gaetano Brundu, Josephine Sassu, Rosanna Rossi, Ermanno Leinardi and Maria Lai.
Would you like more information on any of the artists or the exhibition mentioned here?
Source.
Semyon the peasant boards the locomotive of Great History
Gabriele BALLOI, La Nuova, April 23, 2009
