Louise Miller at the Bolshoi Theater

The repertoire of the Bolshoi Theater was replenished with a valuable title. For the first time in many years, Luisa Miller, not the most popular, but a wonderful opera by Giuseppe Verdi, was staged in Russia. About why the successful choice of the name turned into such an inexpressive incarnation, the editor-in-chief of the Kompozitor publishing house grieves Peter Pospelov.

As follows from the booklet, director Georgy Isahakyan suggested that the Bolshoi Theater stage Louise Miller – and we should say sincere thanks to him. It’s not that the world has forgotten this opera by Verdi – it goes, but not quite like Rigoletto, La Traviata, Un ballo in maschera or even Don Carlos. Meanwhile, in the previously written (1849) “Louise Miller”, the composer successfully tested many musical moves, techniques and forms, thanks to which his later masterpieces were successful. At the same time, Verdi did not lose his traditions at all: Louise Miller is a 100% Italian opera.

In recent decades, we in Russia have not been so afraid of this: singers, coaches have crept up, several leading theaters in the country can put up a full-fledged Italian-style cast for the premiere. Even Italy itself can envy us.

Similar hatred moods could also reign in the hall of the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater, while the orchestra played the Overture, which sounded simply gorgeous – oh yes, conductor Eduard Topchyan. In the very first number after the Overture, a chorus of peasants began to sing – it was heard from somewhere above, and these were not mowers or shepherds, but seraphim, who were entrusted with inspiring and comforting earthly heroes – oh yes, director Georgy Isahakyan.

Then it was not the scythes, but the singers, who took the stage, and here we had to be perplexed in the stalls: the sound was gone.

A painful struggle between the singers and the orchestra began. If you go to the forefront, you can still be heard somehow. If behind your back, not far from the scruff of the neck, there is a heel made of hard material, it also helps a little. However, if the stage is open through and through, and your mise-en-scene dictates you step back a few meters, the vocal work is at the seams. It’s just that no one hears you. The only thing left is to scream. This is hardly what Verdi intended.

We have already experienced quite a few opera premieres on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater and are aware of its problems. The director or conductor can put the singer a meter further – and suddenly the voice starts to sound, and closer – it will be worse. No wonder the play by Schiller, on which the opera was written, is called “Deceit and Love.”

The girl Louise from a poor family was sung by Anna Aglatova at the premiere. Why was she given this part? Anna is beautiful in baroque, Mozart, character roles. You can’t deny her subtlety and musicality, which is evidenced by the leading voice of Louise in the a capella quartet in the second act. Sweet singing in the shade of sotto voce is her path. But the role of the lyric-coloratura heroine in the Italian opera still requires elasticity and resilience of the voice. I would like to hope that a talented artist will no longer be lured into a repertoire that does not suit her.

Beloved by Louise, Rudolph was sung by guest tenor Antonio Poli. Of the entire cast, he sounded really Italian, showed a beautiful timbre, led legato, was expressive in recitatives, took all the notes, including C flat. At times it was difficult for him, but he pulled out the entire game without a single cock. Can this style of singing please? How else, if the orchestra honestly plays forte and fortissimo? Sending vocal sound into the hall, using the laws of formant and overtones, is a more subtle art. It’s already not bad that Antonio finished singing the opera to the end, and in the second act he even went to repeat the cabaletta – this repetition, sometimes, is stopped. But his pair with Anna Aglatova was not successful. If the tenor yells and the soprano whispers, it is difficult to congratulate the troupe on such a casting.

Elchin Azizov, one of the leading baritones of the Bolshoi Theater, did not smooth things over in the role of Miller’s father. He often forces the sound, and here he had to force especially. The same disadvantageous burden was carried by guest bass Simon Lim in the role of the criminal Count Walter. Among the low voices, Nikolai Kazansky convinced in the role of the villain Wurm – the experienced bass of the Bolshoi, who confidently advanced from the walruses to the soloists – perhaps he was the best in the whole composition, and the director deservedly saved him from the death in the final due to the scenario. Agunda Kulaeva sang well the part of her rival, mezzo-soprano Countess.

Eduard Topchyan, head of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia, did not impress an experienced opera conductor. In the orchestra, everything was more than in order, the groups and tutti sounded harmoniously, the wind soloists deserve special thanks, the tempos were not surprising, but the continuity of the musical form suffered: the melody with measured accompaniment did not always smoothly turn into a cadenza or recitation. The composer Verdi probably counted on a more distributed movement of the structure.

Who could surprise the classic Verdi is director Georgy Isahakyan. Imagine, the action of “Louise Miller” begins in the warehouse of a furniture store, similar to the halls of the once familiar IKEA. If this is an update of the plot, then it is overdue by more than a year. Let’s write it off on the principles of the Bolshoi Theatre, which usually lags behind the trends of the time by ten or fifteen years. But at the Bolshoi theatre, all the same, directors who are able to endure their own, albeit wretched, but unified staging idea from beginning to end, are staged. Georgy Isahakyan rushes from one decision to another throughout the performance.

First, he entertains us with a mise-en-scene with customers that has nothing to do with the numbers being sung – however, at the same time, he arranges an advantageous role for the elegant soloist of the second plan, which is performed by Anna Yurkus, a participant in the Youth Opera Program of the theater. Then the named director transfers the poetics of the television series to the opera stage, where Count Walter plays the typical role of a crime boss and, in the course of singing, manages a beauty contest – seductive girls enter the stage one after another, after which they leave for opera heroines, all the more unfavorably dressed by the artist Alexei Tregubov I don’t really want to look.

The second act takes place in the change house of the store, and it was here that Tregubov involuntarily got lucky by the composer, lowering the sound-reflecting wall of the refrigerator to the bottom. He also built a scene in the library with intricate oriental symbolism of flags and miniatures – here you save in the interpretation, but Simon Lim’s oriental appearance mysteriously fits into this construction; I don’t want to talk only about beautiful stairs made of fresh wood, because no one ever climbs or descends them.

The tragic third act, meanwhile, takes place in a temple with columns and stained-glass windows, where glamorous worshipers and tourists wander a couple of times. Having strayed between deceit and love, the road from IKEA led to the temple; Obviously, the innovator Georgy Isahakyan nevertheless submitted to Verdi’s music and on the last pages of the opera conveyed an apology to him. It will work next time.