Premiere of the opera thriller in “Helikon”: “Murder by lot”

On the stage of Shakhovskaya’s White Column Hall in “Helikon-Opera” – an unusual premiere: the opera “Medium” by the American composer of the XX century Giancarlo Menotti. Rarely staged in Russia (first staged at the Leningrad Maly Opera Theater in 1976), this musical thriller is an impressive example of the musical drama of the last century. It combines exaggerated expression with subtle psychologism, the high symbolism of the opera genre with everyday cinematic realism. The opera in the original ends with a murder. The performance too. However, there is a fundamental difference: in each particular performance, one of the three main characters becomes the victim. Who exactly is decided by lot.

On the day of the performance, director Ilya Ilyin and conductor Valery Kiryanov play a game known to everyone since childhood: rock, paper, scissors. The outcome decides who is destined to be shot today. The artists will learn the details of the final outcome an hour before the performance. While there were runs, there were no repetitions. However, the premiere performances have just started – one can only guess how things will go on. Fortunately, everything is prepared for this in the theater.

Spectators enter the lobby of “Helikon” and immediately plunge into the atmosphere of a seance. A mysterious lady sits at a table by the stairs, who, with the help of a magic circle, will give the viewer an answer to a question that concerns him. Answer options – yes, no, goodbye. The latter sounds scary, especially since the staircase itself is shrouded in an ominous white fog.

The orchestra is placed behind a thin curtain at the back of the stage. The playing space is located in the center of the hall, where a high table, designed by the artist Rostislav Protasov, is installed with a luminous ball in the center. Its massive griffin-shaped legs made of heavy natural yew wood look intimidating. Above the table is the mask of the Gorgon Medusa, which glows ominously at moments of the highest tension. At the head of the table is the royal throne, on which sits Madame Flora, a medium, or, more simply, a charlatan who profits from the grief of people who have lost loved ones. Larisa Kostyuk in this role deserves the highest theatrical awards: a delightful voice, absolute psychological authenticity, and also incredible courage and freedom, which allowed this most beautiful woman to appear before the public in the form of a gray-haired, raggedy, drunken old woman.

The costumes in this performance are of great importance. Nika Vylegzhaninova created stylish, beautiful outfits for the characters. Flora’s messy shirt in the second act becomes a huge contrast to them.

Opera by Menotti written in 1946. The composer, who at that time was 35 years old, did not seek to declare himself as an avant-garde artist. The musical language of the opera is quite complex and adequate to the style of the era, but it is expressive intonation, full of beautiful melodies, recognizable genres, beautiful harmonies. Against the background of these traditional techniques, the musical “horror stories” characteristic of soundtracks from Hitchcock’s films are effectively perceived: chromatic passages, dissonances, short motifs built on tritones.

In the original, the action takes place over two to three days. In the version of Ilya Ilyin, no less than 10 years pass between two acts. During this time, Madame Flora’s children grow up. The decision, perhaps controversial – not everything is glued to the plot, but spectacular. It made it possible to bring real children to the stage in the first act – a wonderful boy who seemed to have flown into our world from past eras, Ivan Novoselov (the dumb Toby) and the wonderfully singing girl Angelina Sazonova (Monika). Children are an ideal element of the horror genre, especially the operatic one (suffice it to recall Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, written several years later than The Medium). Giving credibility to the action, they, like no one else, are able to inspire anxiety and uncertainty: is everything as it seems to us?

So the heroine of the opera, Madame Flore, who successfully fools clients Missy Gabino (Olga Shcheglova), Mr. Gobino (Konstantin Brzhinsky) and Mrs. Nolan (Valentina Gofer), who mourn their dead children, at some point begins to seem that her actions are in fact call to life spirits from another world.

The author does not give a clue: either the boy Toby, hunted down by his foster mother, arranged a prank by touching the charlatan’s neck, or she actually managed to break through the portal between the worlds. Each viewer will have to answer the question independently. But one thing is clear: the theme of human, and not mystical, cruelty is revealed in this performance with depth and strength. Flirting with the “spirits” Madame Flora is absolutely soulless – and this leads to the death of her loved ones. Who dies in the final – she is at the hands of one of her children, now grown up – the adopted son of Toby (Nikolay Patsyuk) or the daughter of Monica (Alexander Sokolova) or Toby, as Menotti writes – this will be decided by playing “stone, paper scissors “. Because the meaning is revealed in the final remark of Flora: “I killed the spirit …”

Interestingly, the opera is performed in Russian (translated by Marina Mishuk) with English subtitles, and not vice versa, as one might expect. The reception is convincing: for all the traditionalism of the language, the score, of course, is a musical drama characteristic of the 20th century: intonations are saturated with recitativeness, every word is extremely important. How important and beautifully performed various solos in the orchestra conducted by Valery Kiryanov. Once again I was pleased with the skill of the artists of “Helikon” – from young to old – performing a complex text without seeing the conductor and even without the help of monitors. There is only one reason: the rhythm of the performance, captivating from the first measure, subdues and leads both the artists and the audience in one breath.

The premier block is already underway. Who will be killed this time?