“If the director is funny, then we did our roles right”

The upcoming season of La Scala Theater will open on December 7 with the premiere of Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov directed by Casper Holten and conducted by Riccardo Chailly. Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov will perform in the title role, while young mezzo-soprano Maria Barakova, a native of Kemerovo, in 2017-2021, is an artist of the Youth Program of the Bolshoi Theater, who won gold at the 16th Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019, as Shinkarka. About working with the conductor Chaiy, the “golden” contract, historical costumes and plans for growth Maria Barakova told Vladimir Dudin.

– How do you like Mussorgsky in the interpretation of Riccardo Chailly?

– The maestro and I had only a few rehearsals, but I can already say that he feels great about music, including Russian music. As a conductor, he does everything impeccably competently, but at the same time, if he is not sure of something, he can easily turn to the singer from the height of his status: “Are you comfortable? Do you want to change something? Maybe change the pace? Make a farm? And he consults with us as with equal partners. This is incredibly pleasant to realize, especially since he is very friendly. In general, everyone here supports each other so well. Just a golden contract.

– There are a lot of invited Russian singers there, aren’t there?

— Yes, a big Russian caste. In addition to Ildar Abdrazakov, Stanislav Trofimov (Varlaam) sings Boris, Anya Denisova sings Xenia, Dima Golovnin sings Grigory, Yaroslav Abaimov sings Yurodivy, Oleg Budoratsky, who, by the way, was recently nominated for the Onegin Prize, Mityukha with us Roma Astakhov.

– And who sings Pimen?

– Here Pimena is sung by the Estonian bass Ain Anger.

– And what about the direction, in what style did Kasper Holten make “Boris”?

– I called the contract “golden” for a reason, because the whole production team is a real pleasure. Kasper made, it seems to me, quite a classic production of Russian opera. Historicity, the costumes of the time that Mussorgsky has in mind, and so on. Of course, I will not take bread from critics, but I personally really liked what I saw. And it seems to me that there is nothing for which this performance could be disliked. And rehearsing with Kasper is very exciting and very convenient. Whatever question I ask – say, how to justify this or that action of the characters – it can absolutely explain everything. And asks for more humor. At the final screening, he sincerely laughed, although he had seen my scene many times. Probably, if the director himself was funny, then we did our roles correctly.

– This is your first time working at La Scala. How is the staging process built there?

– Probably, I’m still too young a specialist, or I just don’t pay attention, but I didn’t notice anything specific – the rules here are the same as, for example, in the Metropolitan or in theaters in Germany: come on time, work, do not be distracted, time for there are breaks. Do your job perfectly and everything will be fine. True, on the first day of my work at the Rock, I was ten minutes late for rehearsal, because the word “Ansaldo” was written in the schedule sent to me. I did not understand what it was, I decided that it was probably the name of a rehearsal room somewhere in the theater itself. I came to the theater in advance, I’m not far from home. I asked the guards where this Ansaldo rehearsal room was located, and in response I heard that it was on the other side of Milan, in the southwestern part. I had to urgently jump into a taxi, get into traffic jams. Fortunately, everything worked out, and when I arrived, my turn had not yet come.

“Boris is also the great and terrible opening of the season at La Scala. Are you worried?

– Of course, but, to be honest, I just don’t realize yet that this is the opening of the season. Probably because on the first day in Milan I went to see Fedora with Sonya Yoncheva and I didn’t get the feeling that the season was over. In general, opening the season not in autumn, but in December is terribly unusual.

– Will this be your debut in Milan?

— Yes, I started to travel somewhere for only the second year. But, you see, already the Metropolitan and La Scala. Many singers start their international career sometimes around thirty, and it turns out that I did it at the age of 23, so everything is fine, but you have to move step by step.

– What repertoire are you going to move towards?

– I will say this: I have not yet grown up to my crown parties, and these parties will be Lyubasha, Delilah, Amneris, Eboli. To do this, you need to cultivate your voice, endurance, and the psyche too. So far, I have Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Isabella in Rossini’s The Italian Woman in Algiers, Sonetka in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, and I really like this kind of repertoire. And offers appear more and more, like a snowball. Now I’m preparing Bizet’s Carmen and Charlotte at Massenet’s Werther, I’m teaching the parts.

– And if there is a seducer with a large fee and will still offer to sing something that you have not “grown up” yet?

– And I already had such a case, I was offered to sing Amneris at the Vienna Staatsoper, when Anita Rachvelishvili announced that she was expecting a baby and was suspending her performances. I refused, because money is money, but health is one thing. I will earn money, but restoring health is much more expensive, and this fee may eventually go to visits to the phoniatrist.

– Will you ever be expected in Russia?

– Time will tell. On January 7th I will be at a concert with Khibla Gerzmava, who kindly invited me as a special guest. And at the end of February I’m leaving for Vienna to sing at the Staatsoper Olga in Dmitry Chernyakov’s Eugene Onegin.