Borodin : Prince Igor
Chorus and Orchetra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York
Gianandrea Noseda
There are few operas for which I know so much of the music, and so little of an actual complete performance, and, in some respects, this performance of Prince Igor wasn't going to improve my knowledge greatly. Of course, Prince Igor is one of those editorial nightmares; Borodin worked on it on and off for almost 20 years, but it was still unfinished at his death. Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov pieced together a version for performance and publication, with a prologue and four acts, which might be termed the "standard" performing edition. However, what we heard from the Met was a new performing edition by the conductor Gianandrea Noseda and the director/designer Dmitri Tcherniakov, in a Prologue and three acts, with both scenes and individual numbers re-ordered to suit Tcherniakov's conception of the work. It doesn't solve many of the problems either - there is still nothing really happening in the last act, for example, and it still lasts just under 4 hours.
Where it did get interesting was on two levels. First of all, as with most Russian history prior to the 15th or 16th Century, Prince Igor is more legend than fact. It's quite common; their recorded history was pretty patchy at best in the early days. It does mean that there's a very substantial body of what can only be called mythology which has sunk into the collective subconscious and tends to be broadly accepted as gospel (not that the Russians are the only ones with that kind of "history"). Tcherniakov takes a dim view of the heroic legend of Igor, and brings him down to earth, ending hopefully, but not triumphantly. Secondly, the restructuring of scenes and numbers, and a particular shift of emphasis on the characters of the deserters Skula and Yeroshka, brought out very strongly the similarities to Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, again, especially in the last act, where the parallels with the Kromy Forest scene were very striking.
Tcherniakov is one of the wild cards of opera direction these days. I've seen a lot of very mixed reviews, but only seen one actual production, his Don Giovanni for Aix-en-Provence, which was admittedly completely out of left field, but weirdly fascinating. His Prince Igor is a lot less provocative. He has updated the setting to early 20th Century, and perhaps the most controversial decision after the whole re-structuring of the opera is that the Polovtsian camp scene should be a complete fantasy imagined by a heavily concussed and badly injured Igor - hence the flamboyant field of poppies (evocative both of the Orient, and the battlefield) against a radiantly blue sky, an image that has had widespread circulation since this production opened. Tcherniakov describes it as Igor's idea of heaven, a beautiful, peaceful place, where his son is still alive, and Igor has time to think.
It is true that Prince Igor remains a string of ravishing numbers without much holding them together. The re-structuring works, to a large extent; certainly there's an actual, tangible dramatic flow now, though I think they could have left the scenes of Act 1 (in the standard edition, that is) in their original order, rather than breaking up Yaroslavna's two scenes with that of Galitsky with his drinking cronies. Also, I still don't understand why Tcherniakov has Galitsky mysteriously murdered at the end of the act - except as an expedient way of getting rid of the character. However, defended with the ardour and quality demonstrated by cast and conductor tonight, this seems a perfectly sound interpretation.
This has to be the first major Russian opera I've heard performed at the Met in the last decade that did not have Valery Gergiev at the helm. None the worse for it; Noseda was on fire, leading cast, chorus and orchestra with unfaltering conviction, and wonderfully detailed, sensitive playing from the orchestra. The chorus performed superbly too, a real credit to their Chorus Master Donald Palumbo. As for the cast, a better plateau could hardly be imagined. Ildar Abdrazakov brought a warm, burnished tone and a gravitas belying his 37 years to Igor. Oksana Dyka was a sweet-timbred, plangent Yaroslavna. Mikhail Petrenko was a magnificently odious Prince Galitsky - if there had been any more time before the end of the act, the audience might have cheered on seeing his dead body!
Anita Rachvelishvili brought a voice as dark and lush as chocolate to her passionate Konchakovna, while Stefan Kocán's Khan had the kind of low notes that make the floor vibrate - it almost did in the cinema. Sergey Semishkur had to deal with a slightly truncated role as Prince Vladimir, but sang what was left to him with bright eagerness, while Andrey Popov and Vladimir Ognovenko were outstandingly characterful as the unremitting scoundrels Yeroshka and Skula. The comparison with Varlaam and Missail from Boris Godunov was really unmistakable, helped along by the fact that Ognovenko has been the leading Varlaam internationally for the last twenty-odd years.
All of the artists, cast, chorus and orchestra, lavished such care and attention on Borodin's lyrical music that you had to forgive the unevenness of the opera as a whole. Like the tale of Prince Igor itself, the reputation of this opera perhaps owes something more to legend than to reality, but with such performers, it's a very worthwhile diversion.
[Next : 9th March]
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