The legend of the retrograde – Newspaper Kommersant No. 68 (7513) of 04/19/2023

The Historical Stage of the Mariinsky Theater hosted the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in a new production by Anna Shishkina. Almost simultaneously, the theater showed Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh, a revival of Alexei Stepanyuk’s performance staged back in 1994. About the radical revision of the operatic repertoire undertaken at the Mariinsky, tells Gulyara Sadykh-zade.

On the eve of Easter, both operas took place literally on the same evening: at five o’clock in the evening, Iolanta was given on the Historical Stage (Valery Gergiev was behind the conductor’s stand), and at seven in the evening on the New Stage – The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh (again with Valery Gergiev ). From a purely calendar point of view, there are few questions about this marathon: Iolanta and Kitezh are an excellent choice of opera names for Holy Saturday. The protagonist of Tchaikovsky’s opera is light, understood both in the physical and in the mystical sense, as the light of God’s grace penetrating all that exists. “A priceless gift, a holy gift” at the end of the opera is acquired by the blind Iolanthe, the daughter of King Rene, along with her eyesight, which is restored to her by the Arab doctor Ebn-Hakia. The mystical background of “Kitezh” – the story of the transformed city of the righteous, ascended to heaven with all the inhabitants – is also more than appropriate for showing on the eve of Easter.

But holidays come and go, performances remain in the repertoire, as well as questions about their staging. “Wonderful first-born of creation,” the heroes of Iolanthe sing about the same light, merging in an ecstatic duet against the backdrop of a flowering garden. Lancet arches, translucent veils, costumes diligently reproducing styles “from the Middle Ages” (with slight, however, deviations towards the Italian Renaissance) – the stage entourage downright screamed that the directors, director Anna Shishkina and set designer Pyotr Okunev, in no case did they want to enter into not only an argument, but at least some kind of dialogue with the author’s text. The clumsiness of stereotyped mise-en-scenes and the intolerable absurdity of the outfits of ladies and gentlemen created, in spite of all lofty considerations, an unplanned, but completely obvious comic effect.

“Iolanta” is the second premiere of 2023, staged by Anna Shishkina, unknown to anyone (it is only known that she was a commissioning director on the theater’s staff). The first experience of her independent work was the production of “Nabucco” by Verdi, in which Shishkina, in collaboration with stage designer Pyotr Okunev, worked hard to create a magnificent and spreading vampuki. Everything turned out the way we like it: gold, armor, cardboard poses, lofty gestures. But no one will accuse the creators of the performance of “desecration of the classics.”

The current repertoire concept of the Mariinsky Theater easily fits into the general trend “time, back!”. The course was taken on the aesthetics of the Soviet theater of the 70s, and even the “pre-thaw” 50s. Over the past year, the names of directors who have staged at the theater for the past 20 years have consistently disappeared from the poster – domestic (primarily Dmitry Chernyakov) and Western. Even the name of the completely harmless Giancarlo del Monaco, who in her time staged Othello, a performance that, for no reason at all, was also returned to the repertoire (instead of Othello staged by Vasily Barkhatov), ​​but on posters and in del Monaco’s program mentioned. The performances of the 2000s, which at least somehow reflect current issues, are being replaced by performances that carry absolutely no intelligible directorial message: performances-illustrations, performances “about nothing”, devoid of any kind of directorial reflection.

“Iolanta” staged by Mariusz Treliński, which has been running in the theater since 2009, with its gloomy color, trees with roots pulled out of the soil and hanging over the stage, a glass box in which sinister demonesses-nurses crowded over the suffering, mentally unstable heroine, now is, of course, inappropriate. As well as the visionary Kitezh by Dmitry Chernyakov – his first work at the Mariinsky Theater back in 2003. Chernyakov’s performance was staged quite recently – of course, dilapidated without the author’s supervision, in many respects remade and simplified, but it went on. Now it was decided to return to the earlier “Kitezh” by Alexei Stepanyuk; in the distant 1990s, his performance was perceived as the first, still timid approach to the shining mystery of the “Russian Parsifal”, which was not yet fully comprehended aesthetically and in content. Unsuccessful scenography (invented by Stepaniuk himself) – low mounds and hillocks – and the impenetrable darkness on the stage did not at all contribute to success.

However, in the new historical and aesthetic circumstances, Stepanyuk’s performance, transferred to the New Stage, not only changed – everything seems to be the same, even the old costumes were pulled out of the storerooms – but at least it began to look and be perceived more prominently, more meaningfully. Color brightened up; dressed in a silvery radiance stage; iconographic faces, canonical poses, the statuary quality of the choir, as if singing akathists, the epic slowness of the musical unfolding acquired something solemn and liturgical. New technologies that have been learned to use over 20 years have diversified the visual range and served to decorate the old performance a lot.

I remember how naturally and sincerely Galina Gorchakova sang the part of Fevronia in 1994; how grotesquely, prominently, Konstantin Pluzhnikov played and sang the part of Grishka Kuterma; what a great Medvedchik Nikolai Gassiev was. But the current line-up turned out to be no worse: Maria Bayankina quite meaningfully sang the most difficult part of Fevronia in terms of tessitura. Sergei Semishkur first appeared on stage as Grishka Kuterma, a hawk moth and an inveterate sinner, and it was a real acting and vocal success: a hoarse, piercing timbre with expressive overtones and an almost perfect fit into the role. Alexander Trofimov was also good – Prince Vsevolod: a luminous knight in shining armor, no matter how Russian Lohengrin.

The practice of performing Kitezh has not been interrupted since 2003, and the habit of returning to Rimsky-Korsakov’s score from time to time has had a positive effect on the quality of the sound of the Mariinsky orchestra: gentle rustling of leaves and bird trills – in Praise of the Desert; the indomitable frenzied leap and clash of two themes, Russian and Tatar, in the famous symphonic intermission The Battle of Kerzhents; melting crystal sounds in the scene of Fevronia’s doom… Authentic, typically Korsakov’s, pleasing to the ear with thin thinning, transparent and sonorous sound palette shimmered under the hands of Gergiev, who led the performance accurately and intelligently, not in a hurry, enjoying every moment. In my opinion and taste, it was an almost perfect performance, dramaturgically precisely leading to catharsis in the finale – in the scene of Heavenly Kitezh. Only it is an infinite pity that we will no longer see this scene as it was staged by Dmitry Chernyakov: even the recording of that performance has not been preserved.