Dark victory
“In a season of high-profile duds like Don Giovanni and the Ring, the Met has found a winner in a dark horse, Mussorgsky’s moody Khovanshchina.” Our Own JJ (not pictured) likes something for a change in the New York Post. (Photo: Ken Howard)
Sorry, when I said that I had been to Russia a couple times, I meant to point out that Russians in Moscow do tend to assume that privacy is impossible, and they seem to take it for granted that other people know what they are up to.
But Ilka, in many parts of the world, Russia and Eastern Europe included, privacy is impossible. Actually, in people’s minds privacy is not a priority, whereas communal closeness -and communicating with/about others- is.
I quite agree. But I think it is also easy to over-generalize, especially about the Russians, who are continually stereotyped by Americans as being scheming and duplicitous, rather than pragmatic given the difficult power situations that persist in that country.
It was very odd meeting guys there. The homophobia is much more intense there that it is here, and the closet is very absolute. There are plenty of remarkably bold advocates for gay rights there. My own experiences of how people engage with the lack of privacy were all mostly related to this, because some people were very threatened by my openness.
“openness” – you mean Glasnost?
You have a point, Vinaigrette. There is a clear-cut difference between lack of privacy and glasnost: for instance, under communism, everybody knew that so-and-so was gay, but any glasnost -i.e. any “official” proof- was carefully avoided because homosexuality was considered a criminal offense. The same double standard applied to glasnost in most other aspects of life, which may explain to some extent why rumors and hear-say are still so important in formerly communist countries.
Too bad the Act II scene with the Pastor is cut, but Galuzin wasn’t sounding great in the broadcast so perhaps it’s all for the better.
I’m not a big fan of the Stravinsky ending. The Old Believers’ self-immolation is a ghastly business. Stravinsky’s “quiet” ending switches the musical point-of-view from that of the horrified spectator to that of the sectarians, secure in the knowledge that their martyrdom will earn them eternal salvation. Stravinsky was fairly devout, so I suppose I can perhaps understand a bit why he would want to end the opera with a cooly beautiful musical vision of heaven (the ending of Les Noces also comes to mind.) But in the context of an ostensibly “historical” opera (as opposed, say, to the explicitly legendary Kitezh) I’m pretty uncomfortable endorsing the viewpoint of those committing mass suicide in the name of religion. It’s Jim Jones territory, as far as I’m concerned.
Stravinsky’s ending also omits a couple of delicious ironies. Marfa’s visions of the sublime are sensual and the union with Andrei is necessary for her to complete her ascension into heaven. She dies with his name on her lips. Andrei, however, doesn’t appear to walk into the fire because he shares Marfa’s religious convictions. Rather, having lost the only girl he ever loved (or wanted to rape), Emma, and having lost his dad and their paramilitary organization, he has nothing left to live more. He dies screaming out Emma’s name, not Marfa’s. This is all omitted in the Stravinsky ending.
Early 20th-century Russia was rife with millenarians looking for a radical restructuring of bourgeois and liberal society. Written a few decades in advance, Khovanshchina (in my view) implicitly endorses the Rightist critique of the status quo. Musorgsky certainly seems to sympathize with the Old Believers and I think he even has a soft spot for the prerogatives of the old aristocracy (Musorgsky became less of a democrat and more of a snob as he got older, I believe.) Stravinsky’s transfiguration of the martyrs into a pure, holy community represents (for me) a further step towards a political viewpoint I find unpalatable.
Postscript: Stravinsky flirted with fascism in the 20s and 30s and(if I recall correctly) sought citizenship in Mussolini’s Italy.
Vladimir Stasov apparently yelled at Mussorgsky for filling his “people’s opera” with princes “An opera of princely spawn” he called it.
Interestingly the Cherniakov production abandons its ‘konzept’ for the final scene (using Stravinsky’s ending) – it’s definitely the viewpoint of the reactionary Old Believers. Which I imagine was Mussorgsky’s. Certainly his music (for the Old Believers) leaves no doubt where his sympathies lay.
Rimsky – very jarringly, (though quite exciting), resurrects the fanfares associated with Peter the Great and progress – Shostakovich used Rimsky’s ending – which, if more ideologically optimistic, is anti-Mussorgsky.
In the old Soviet vocal score, Shostakovich provides yet another ending – a muted vision of hope, referring back to the serene Prelude – has anyone ever done that, I wonder……
I think none of it is
Whoops – don’t know where that last sentence came from!!
Yes, the Soviet film version of Khovanschina has the prelude-as-postlude. You can see it here:
Part 1
http://video.yandex.ru/users/alekx2016/view/182/#
Part 2:
http://video.yandex.ru/users/alekx2016/view/183/#
I have even seen a print of the film where there is an optimistic-inspiring voice-over at the end, as the prelude-postlude rings out.
The stage directions in the Rimsky/Bessel version call out for the Soldiers to look on horrified as they witness the carnage. Rimsky was of course the most simpatico of Russian composers of his generation – this is the sort of ending I’m most comfortable with.
erk, “Khovanshchina”.
Thank you- What a find! – I look forward to it.
Sorry, those links no longer work (that may be the print that had the voice-over at the ending.)
Anyway, here’s another print of the film (with English subs):
And the full film with voice-overs at the beginning and the end may be downloaded at:
http://film.arjlover.net/info/hovanschina.1959.avi.html
Thanks, Mark – I am seeing this on Tuesday; this will help my learning curve as I know nothing about this beautiful work.
Those who want to see the Maryinsky under Gergiev perform Khovanshchina c. 1991 can find the 5 acts of the opera at:
http://v.youku.com/v_playlist/f3687019o1p4.html
http://v.youku.com/v_playlist/f3687019o1p5.html
http://v.youku.com/v_playlist/f3687019o1p6.html
http://v.youku.com/v_playlist/f3687019o1p7.html
http://v.youku.com/v_playlist/f3687019o1p8.html
You’re all whipping me into a frenzy to hear this work for the first time. Thank you.
Goody goody – a Khovanshchina Kool-aid Konvert…….
wow I just watched the whole movie- it was glorious- those faces! those voices! Plisetskaya as the Persian dancing girl! that music!. can’t wait to see it next week. Thank you SO MUCH for the link.
Just a thought: from comments in this thread I get the feeling people are quite affected by the Khovanshchina libretto, peculiar and un-western as it may be, and I wonder why.
Well having seen it last night – well I should really say heard it – as the production is an inoffensive backdrop – I feel I can comment on that with a little more clarity, oedipe.
First – musically – this revival is a triumph – once through a few mobiles phones in Act 1 and some coughing later, you could hear a pin drop. It was like chamber music – all the grandeur was there, but articulated, light on the feet, even speedy, and with some wonderfully deeply felt performances – focused voices, nary a slavonic wobble – Ildar Abdrazakov, younger than usual for Dosifei was so honeyed and rapt, and Anatoly Kocherga (his Met debut!? – wasn’t he in his prime 25 years ago?) was terrifically charismatic, and electrifying in his appearance above the crowd in Act 3 (shame the audience applauded, but the final Eb was luminous), Misha Didyk managed Andrei – a thankless role – with dignity, and Galuzin sounded ‘on’ – not strangely baritonal like I’ve heard recently. As for Borodina – it is one of the great voices – and she was so simple and unaffecting in her confessional in the last act. The chorus were possessed – thrilling to hear.
The bottom line with this piece is to remember that the original conception was to be about Peter the Great and his sister Sophia. When the Romanov edict (none of the dynasty could be portrayed onstage) made this impossible, we are left with these satellite characters, who all stand for something else, some part of a society that is about to be overturned by this offstage powerhouse, Peter. But they are all passive and contradictory and have seemingly resigned themselves before curtain up. And Mussorgsky does not take a viewpoint – no ‘Turandot’ this – with a four note motiv thundered out and dominating, so that everything is coloured by her offstage presence – instead, we get this extraordinary serene Prelude, which is immediately contradicted by a mob scene. Rimsky tried to tie the opera up, by reintroducing the theme at the unwritten bits in scs 2/6, by making it depict the cleansing of progress. But Mussorgsky seems to be telling us what will be lost, by such over-riding progress. The proto-western character, Prince Golitsin, seen in his European finery – in contrast to the illiterate crowds, marauding soldiers, Old Believers in sc 1 – well the first thing this ‘progressive’ does is consult a fortune-teller, the old Russia, superstition – why? We hear, in the discussion of the 3 Princes (the leader of the Old Believers has renounced his prince-dom) of all the worldly doings of these characters – but we are never shown them – they are introduced, established – and then exiled, assassinated, or just wander off (were there more scenes supposed to be there, you wonder!). The religious woman, Marfa, has had an affair, condoned and understood by her confessor, with the most feckless wastrel, who we first see trying to rape another woman – we see her as a fortune-teller and then as an expression of unconditional love – it’s extraordinarily strange – and poetic. The music too is non-developmental, even non dramatic in places, these beautiful long limbed church-chanty melodies appear as backdrops for argument, challenge – yet they remain unchanged, impermeable, impassive to the drama.
I can’t explain or even justify this opera. It leads to places where words don’t go and only empathy resides. It hits me in the solar plexus and, after 35 years of knowing and loving it, I have no idea why!
Thanks, Belfagor, for your detailed and heart-felt reply.
Maybe we perceive this opera as some sort of antidote to the compulsively rationalist, asepticized and cynical (western) world we live in.
Thanks Belfagor.
Kotscherga debuted this role at Vienna SO in 1989 but vocally he is truly in his prime nowadays. He sang Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony at the Berlin Philharmonie in December 2010 and the power and fluency were astonishing. And he knew exactly how to spread the sound throughout the auditorium, in contrast with soprano Olga Mykytenko who fixed on two spots and was somewhat “lost” to our seats.
As it happens, Maestro Petrenko was slated to conduct the Shostakovich but his wonky back – see also Fidelio (ROH, March-April 2011) and Iolanta/Francesca da Rimini (Theater an der Wien, Jan 2012, also with Mykytenko) – forced him out. In a neat piece of symmetry, Neeme Järvi – original conductor of this Khovanshchina back in 1985 – stepped in for him.
I am interested to hear your reference to chamber music. That was much the impression that I and others had of Petrenko’s Lyon Tristan last year, and in particular Act 2. I had never noticed the intimacy in the music before. Gorgeous – and, happily, no mobile phones to distract us.
It’s true what they say (and you of course will have direct experience,considering your moniker) that basses mature like wine – I looked up and Kocherga was born in 1946 – amazing control for the mid-60′s……..
Audience wasn’t as sparse as I thought it might be – I mean, amazing to hear a piece like this at all really – it can’t sell and has massive orchestra, chorus and cast. We were blessed!
beautiful review, Belfagor, of a beautiful performance; I was there too, and was at first feeling unengaged by the work (which I’ve only seen once before, back in 1999) but was, little by little, enveloped in its musical world, transfixed by the third scene, and overwhelmed by the time we got to the end; Kotscherga was a great performer to watch; Borodina and Abrazakov both so brilliantly understated in these roles, no hamming at all, Abrazakov hypnotizing the house without even looking up at us; and Borodina with the most direct musicality and the simplest gestures; what a magnificent performance she gave in a role that she recorded twenty years ago (and much more involving than I remember Zajick in this role); dramatically, what’s it all about: perhaps Mussourgsky’s compassion for those who lose out to history on the way to the modern world? final scene had me also thinking ahead to Dialogues of the Carmelites next year… and by the way the house was not full; tickets must be available. . .
your mention of ‘Dialogues du Carmelites’ is particularly apt, not just for the final annihilations, but that is a piece that similarly has a musical language that operates in opposition to its subject (in fact, obviously derived from Mussorgsky in many respects) that bathes a cruel drama in compassion – and has a similar overwhelming effect for those susceptible (like me! – and thou, it would seem, too)