Mariinsky Theater

The Met’s postponed/canceled Fiery Angel would have been its third Prokofiev opera in the 21st century since the company mounted The Gambler in 2001, a production that starred a searing Vladimir Galouzine as Andrei and Elena Obraztsova as Grammy.

The gigantic War and Peace followed the next year and introduced Anna Netrebko, Ekaterina Semenchuk, and Evgeny Nikitin, among many others, to the company. Both productions were revived in 2008 but since then, Prokofiev has been absent from the Met’s repertoire. While The Fiery Angel is a compelling work—one I saw in 1992 with Galina Gorchakova and Sergei Leiferkus during an earlier Mariinsky Met visit in 1992—I believe that the Met might have a much-needed hit instead with either Betrothal or The Love for Three Oranges. 

Today’s Mariinsky broadcast brings to mind the first and so far only time I’ve seen Betrothal, Prokofiev’s delicious comedy which is based on The Duenna by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the Irish-born playwright best known for The School for Scandal.

In 1998, the Mariinsky Opera of St. Petersburg (then known as the Kirov) came to the Met for another visit. The company’s Betrothal performance I attended might have been my first chance to hear Netrebko who starred as Louise, but she had earlier taken part in the company’s opening night gala during which she performed Lyudmila’s aria from Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, an opera I also saw that spring but with Olga Trifonova instead as Lyudmila.

Betrothal is infrequently produced ioutside of Russia. Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse staged it in 2014 conducted by Tugan Sokhiev, and earlier this year it was mounted in a fishy production at the Theater an der Wien as Die Verlobung in Kloster.

Prokofiev: Betrothal in a Monastery

Louise: Violetta Lukyanenko
Clara: Yulia Matochkina
Duenna: Larisa Diadkova
Don Jerome: Yevgeny Akimov
Don Ferdinand: Roman Burdenko
Don Antonio: Evgeny Akhmedov
Mendoza: Sergey Aleksashkin
Don Carlos: Yuri Laptev

Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Mariinsky Opera in Vladivostok
2016
Broadcast

Betrothal can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.

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Christopher Corwin

Christopher Corwin began writing for parterre box in 2011 under the pen name “DeCaffarrelli.” His work has also appeared in , The New York Times, Musical America, The Observer, San Francisco Classical Voice and BAMNotes. Like many, he came to opera via the Saturday Met Opera broadcasts which he began listening to at age 11. His particular enthusiasm is 17th and 18th century opera. Since 2015 he has curated the weekly podcast Trove Thursday on parterre box presenting live recordings.

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