French in Nizhny Novgorod

The premiere of “Carmen” was held at the Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theatre. Bizet’s opera was staged by the current chief conductor of the Nizhny Novgorod Opera Dmitry Sinkovsky and director Elizaveta Moroz. Tells Alexey Parin.

Prior to the premiere in Nizhny, Elizaveta Moroz worked as an assistant director at the Bolshoi Theater for a good eight years, as they say, “saw a lot”, made interesting small-format performances, and now for the first time she has taken on a large one. She managed to create a multi-level performance, in the center of which is the skillful director Carmen, who determines the action on stage from beginning to end. Dressed throughout the entire performance in a half-length black velvet dress, she devoutly kisses the mirror of the stage in Habanera, presses the curtain to herself – like the most precious things in the world to her. At the end of the second act, at the moment when everyone is overwhelmed by the delight of liberation, the seven participants in the jubilation raise banners: if you read on one side, you get Theater, and on the other, Liberte. That is, theater and freedom are the embodiment of one and the same thing.

Is it so? Carmen does not succeed in many things on stage, and she has a hard time: she advises the use of violence – and she herself suffers from it. And in the general dancing dump of chorus girls in swaying skirts, there really is no place for her. And she herself, with all her enthusiasm, clearly dislikes all this theater. And, in fact, she herself purposely at the end brings José to a blow with a Navajo, because she is not only a director, but also a woman: she needs him to “turn on” her. And then, as if inadvertently, in the last bars of the opera, she kisses him with genuine passion.

On the main plot, feminist and self-contained, Frost has superimposed a lot of additional layers. In the first half, only soldiers and women are on stage, which seems to resonate with the current social agenda in Russia, and the replacement of Seville children from the libretto with women who angrily wrap footcloths around the shins of soldiers makes a depressing impression. In the third act, an endless series of trunks reminds of the eternal domestic shuttle business that was seething in the 1990s and, it seems, is coming to life again (in a more civilized form) now. But in these trunks, it’s not sanctioned goods on stage, but all sorts of theatrical crap: puppets, ballet tutus and other manifestations of “theatrical freedom”.

Each component in the performance has its own “icing on the cake”. Masterfully invented by Denis Shibanov, the movable scenery turns into a huge majestic construction with carved bulls at the end – to match the “Aida” in the Arena di Verona. Numerous skillfully and non-trivially made costumes (artists Olga and Elena Benditsky) now and then explode with specially invented surprises. Lighting designer Alexander Romanov uses a lot of half-forgotten hanging lamps, but he uses them so accurately and modernly that you will admire. Sometimes it even seems that there are too many ideas and colors, but this is the redundancy that is preferable to scarcity.

Carmen Natalia Lyaskova, who went through a difficult school with Konstantin Bogomolov, who staged the same opera in Perm, flawlessly built into herself a new image: both vocally and acting, she convinces us that it is in women that we must seek salvation from all the horrors of the earth. Ivan Gyngazov has grown incredibly in terms of skill (in Nizhny Novgorod, he alone performs Herman in The Queen of Spades, despite the fact that Sinkovsky went through 70 candidates): he skillfully moves from the role of assistant director to the “live” Jose without any effort, and wild roaring passion in the final scene sings so selflessly and school at the same time that you are amazed. The Italian voice of Venera Gimadieva polishes the role of “Micaela under the stick” (imposed on her in the performance that Carmen creates), and in general all the soloists are very good: their French is almost flawless and clear even in short conversational dialogues. Only the magnificent singer Garry Agadzhanian in the role of Escamillo deserves reproach, who failed to tune his voice to the Torero tessitura, but, to tell the truth, this part is now given to few people: the Lisitsians and Raimondi have disappeared.

On the other hand, worthwhile conductor’s work is definitely not gone. Dmitry Sinkovsky (this is his second work on the big stage – the first was The Queen of Spades; see “Kommersant” dated September 22, 2022) inflates Bizet’s music to the limit. Sometimes it even whirls it too much, moves it towards Rossini, but on the whole, the whole musical texture has nobility and freshness. And in the rare energy of this “Carmen” freedom and theater definitely coexist.