Santuzza got pregnant thanks to Bertman: the premiere of “Country Honor” at the “Helikon-Opera”

The premiere of Pietro Mascagni’s opera Rural Honor was held with a full house and applause at the Helikon Opera. The staging by the theatre’s artistic director Dmitry Bertman in partnership with his main team — artists Igor Nezhny and Tatyana Tulubyeva, choreographer Edvald Smirnov, lighting designer Damir Ismagilov and choirmaster Yevgeny Ilyin under the sensitive conductor’s gesture of maestro Yevgeny Brazhnik — was designed for a wow effect. And this effect took place in full.

There are no naked actors here, no one bothered to rewrite the plot and move the action from Sicily, well, at least to Mars of the Star Wars era. They don’t bring an army of mercenaries onto the stage, they don’t turn heroes into laundry workers. Incredibly, there are no cleaners with mops around the stage, and no one ever grabs a mobile phone. There is nothing at all here that would infiltrate Mascagni’s opera “from the outside”. Everything that impresses, touches and even shocks is grown from the inside of a veristic masterpiece, which has forever secured the status of an outstanding composer for the author.

“How so? – a connoisseur of modern opera directing will be surprised. Where is the wow factor? And he is here, nearby, close – in the orchestra pit, where the musicians perfectly perform Mascagni’s score, and also on the stage, where the acting, the level of the soloists’ vocals and the fantastic work of the choir, in which each chorister is the brightest personality, turn the viewer from a passive observer in an event participant. It is also in visual images – a detailed, pseudo-everyday, almost cinematic picture, where the ruins of a certain “Coliseum” are hung with signs of trattorias and restaurants. There is a lot of real hay here, neatly stacked in sheaves. Hay – smelling, fresh – meets the audience right at the entrance. Still would! After all, this is not about some kind of honor – about rural! But this “realism” is a hoax. The director’s decision of “Country Honor” is incredibly far from everyday reading. And the more literal and even naturalism in the behavior of the characters, the stronger their elevation to the true and only possible level of the opera genre: opera is always about the gods. Even if the heroine is a woman with low social responsibility, and the hero is a drinking rogue. Such is the law of the genre, as music makes it.

Music is the main character of the opera directed by Dmitry Bertman. It is her, and not the text, that the director puts, motivating literally every intonation, harmony, every solo orchestral timbre, change in dynamics, compaction of texture. And it’s incredibly mesmerizing. And at the same time, it ensures strict adherence to the author’s history – after all, in Italian opera, great attention has always been paid to the quality of the libretto. Moreover, the vocal intonation lined up after the word, corresponded to it. By staging this score today, Dmitry Bertman and Yevgeny Brazhnik aggravate everything to the extreme. They raise the emotional and semantic degree strictly according to the vector set by the author to the maximum height. Sometimes beyond the limits of the possible. And this is precisely the very wow effect that has not been on the opera stage for a long time.

Five artists – five characters, of which it is impossible to single out the main and secondary ones. Larisa Kostyuk (Mama Lucia) is majestic, tall, unbending, never losing her composure. Everything revolves around her – young heroes, lost in their passions, seek salvation from her. She seems to be able to hide them under her wing. And therefore, the horror of the tragedy that covered her in the finale especially touches the soul. Shota Chibirov as Turiddu does incredible things. His passion is off the charts, sometimes too risky even for the strong tenor he possesses. The very image of Turiddu in his interpretation – a passionate man who does not control himself and at the same time is fully immersed in local traditions – is truthful and symbolic at the same time. Beauty Yulia Nikanorova – Lola. According to the directors, she is not a traitor at all. And Turiddu does not reciprocate the desperate harassment. Innocence makes Lola another victim, not the perpetrator of the tragedy. And it also enhances the degree of empathy towards the characters. The same is true in the image of Alfio performed by Maxim Perebeinos. The moment when he learns about his wife’s possible betrayal, sobers up and realizes that according to the rules of his community, someone’s death cannot be avoided – one of the strongest scenes of the play. And, of course, Santuzza performed by Svetlana Creator. Perhaps, here we can seriously talk about the appearance of extraordinary acting work. In Bertman’s decision, Santuzza is pregnant. And this explains everything: her hysteria, attempts to keep the unfaithful lover, her humiliation and – most importantly – betrayal, leading to a bloody denouement. Creator does not protect her magnificent voice – and the point is not at all that she forces the sound: just in the sense of vocal technique, the singer does everything professionally, very wisely disposing of the God-given instrument. The matter is in the emotional state in which the actress introduces herself – it is prohibitive. Bertman took a huge risk – he decided to show on stage a terrible picture of premature birth, provoked by the heroine’s nervous shock and her late remorse. This takes place against the background of the contemplative, serene music of the famous orchestral intermezzo. And in this combination of the beautiful and the terrible, there is again the realization of the long-awaited and almost lost approach to the operatic genre, designed to elevate the everyday, low, human to the divine level. And not vice versa.

In this scene, nevertheless resolved in a moderately realistic way, without vulgarity and vulgarity, the religious component of Rural Honor is revealed. After all, the events take place on the day of Easter. Prayer is one of the ecstatic numbers in the score, in which, by the way, there is not a single “passing” motif, the whole opera is a solid hit. Of course, the timing of the action is not accidental. The aspiration of people to each other, the thirst for hugs, love, kisses – the inhabitants of this conditional “Sicily” love as best they can. And the somewhat erotic plasticity of the extras (a word least of all suitable for the Helikon choir) against the background of prayer, which can shock other zealots, is in fact organic and natural – it touches with its naivety and sincerity. The loss of a child for Santuzzi is a sacrifice that she must make for her transgression. Otherwise, there will be no salvation.

The performance is filled with symbols, conventions, signs that send a signal every moment: everything that happens here is as real as it is metaphorical. As much about each of us as about what many have never had and never will, but what everyone secretly dreams of – an all-consuming love that takes life, but promises redemption.