“Big opera remains the most communicative musical genre”

The world premiere of the opera Animal Farm took place on the stage of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam Alexandra Raskatova. Based on Orwell’s story of the same name, the opera was staged by renowned director Damiano Michieletto, and Bassem Akiki, who made his debut at this theatre, acted as musical director. Vladimir Dudin asked Alexander Raskatov about the relevance of Orwell, about how to find operatic keys to his characters, and about how Animal Farm was held in Amsterdam.

How was the premiere? How was the opera received?

“Opera is a delicate matter, and success or failure here depends on very many circumstances. There are many more of them than in non-stage music: directing, scenography, costumes, the well-being of soloists (there were 16 of them in Animal Farm!), each of whom had his own sound engineer. Counting soloists, two choirs, an orchestra, complex backstage engineering, costume designers, coaches, and so on, about 250 people worked for my opera. It is difficult for me to put into words how my opera looked on the stage, so that those who have not yet heard or seen it can understand it. I can only say that tickets for all seven performances were sold out a few days before the premiere, and in the process, public interest only increased. More than a thousand people remained outside the theater for the last performance, unable to buy a ticket. This is a rare occurrence for a new opera. And the reception of the audience exceeded all my expectations. Now the Vienna Opera, the Teatro Massimo di Palermo and the Helsinki Opera are next in line.

Whose idea was it to take the plot of this Orwell story?

— This idea was proposed to me by the director of the Dutch National Opera Sophie de Lint, for which I am very grateful to her. Amsterdam has a special place in my professional life, it’s like my second musical home. On this stage in 2010 the premiere of my opera Heart of a Dog took place. And after the premiere of “Animal Farm” we go with Elena (singer Elena Vasilyeva, wife of Alexander Raskatov.— “b”) down the street, a cyclist unknown to me rushes past, seeing me, shouting: “Bravo, maestro!” — and it goes on.

– Judging by what is happening in the world today, Orwell turned out to be a visionary?

– Yes, his idea of ​​”Animal Farm” has acquired a terrible grin. In fact, it’s like Darwinism in reverse. Orwell, of course, was a seer, but even he could not know everything at that time. It has long been known that the leaders of the Great Terror adored the theater, and at the same time actresses, dancers, singers … Remember the historical case when Beria handed a bouquet to a certain “disagreeing” actress, which turned out to be a wreath on her grave? I depicted this episode in the love scene of Squealer`a (Business) and a young actress, whom I named Pigetta. What is opera without love and murder? Surely all this was already in the sublunar world, it was just that we were not there then. You open some ancient historian and you see – the same thing. Now the scale is different, multiplied by scientific and technological progress. In connection with Animal Farm, I will quote myself. “I would not want the monkeys of the future to say something like three hundred years later: “We are descended from man!”

— In your operas, you always involve your wife Elena Vasilieva, for whom you usually write the most complex parts. What did she get this time?

– For her, I wrote a special role – a Crow named Blacky. This is actually a male role played by a woman, one of the most difficult parties, saturated with all possible and impossible effects. Fortunately, Elena’s dramatic coloratura soprano covers a gigantic range of four octaves.

– And what voice did the Berkshire boar, the dictator Napoleon, sing?

– The part of Napoleon was written for bass-baritone and requires an exceptionally large tessitura. This is a typical villainous tyrant. However, avoiding “butter oil”, I sometimes sharply broke this character in the direction, so to speak, pseudo-lyrical and pseudo-compassionate. In general, in this opera, the casts turned out to be piecework, there are no second roles in principle. Of the 16 soloists, 12 have supersessions. In addition to tessitura data, the soloists had to meet certain stage requirements, which I reduced to the principle of three “E”: eccentric, electric, extravagant. And each soloist impressed in a special way. Soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre, bass Gennady Bezzubenkov shocked everyone, there are no such voices in Europe. Countertenor Artem Krutko amazed me with the beauty of the timbre. I have never heard such lofty notes — a good third higher than the Queen of the Night — that the American coloratura soprano Holly Flack had. The tessitura of the English tenor James Kryshak seemed incomprehensible, while the French tenor Carl Laquite seemed to have three voices. I am grateful to all the soloists without exception.

How did you get in touch with the production team?

“The relationship with Damiano Michieletto was excellent. He brought his Italian team to Amsterdam: Paolo Fantina (set designer) and Gianluca Cataldo (set designer). They did an amazing job, Damiano found many interesting solutions that adorned the performance. Bassem Akiki is a conductor of Lebanese origin, a very precise, scrupulous musician with an absolutely mathematical mindset, at the same time very artistic, with rare human communication. German costume designer Klaus Bruns is a renowned master of his craft. In general, the performance (I’m talking only about soloists, director and conductor) featured representatives of 12 nationalities, including Russia, the USA, Israel, England, Georgia, Mexico, Lebanon, not to mention traditional France, Holland, Italy. The relationship between all of us was just wonderful, the music brought us together, it was over the barriers.

Is it difficult to compose a grand opera today?

– It is the grand opera, in my opinion, that has been and remains the most communicative musical genre. It holds up despite fierce competition from cinema, not to mention new types of media art. I’m not against small chamber operas, but only a return to a big opera can create the necessary tension, stretch the thread between the musicians and the audience, create some kind of dramatic explosive. There is a big pitfall here – high cost. A modern grand opera is an expensive pleasure. It requires much more financial investment than chamber performances. Not all theaters, unfortunately, can afford it, and this makes the development of the genre very difficult.

— Russian opera theaters did not offer you to write anything?

– For all the time of my operatic career, I do not remember a single serious offer from any Russian opera house. Although it seems to me that I could well count on it. By the way, I am still classified in Europe as a “Russian composer”, neither French nor German. And two concerts scheduled for this year and canceled in Warsaw are a sad confirmation of this …

— Your operas are connected with great literature — Edgar Allan Poe (The Well and the Pendulum), Bulgakov (The Heart of a Dog), and now Orwell. How does your reading circle look like now?

– hit the sore spot. It is very difficult for me to live without new books, because for so many years I have been cut off from the riches that Moscow bookstores are full of. In general, I became addicted to the wonderful biographies from ZhZL: Platonov, Khlebnikov is my favorite, Bulgakov, Brodsky. I also became interested in Jung – an interesting autobiography!

– Perhaps you will find in some biography a plot for a grand opera?

“Writing operas about great composers and writers is a thankless task; in my opinion, it does not end with anything good. By the way, about books. During the production of “Heart of a Dog” at La Scala, they arranged for me to meet with Umberto Eco. We talked face to face for over an hour. I asked him: “How do you manage that what you write is equally understandable and interesting for both the ordinary reader and the connoisseur-intellectual?” He obviously liked the question, and he answered in a riddle: “And this is my double path.” And so, judging by the reception of my new opera by a completely different type of audience, I probably still managed to unravel the mystery of the “double path”.