Poor Tchaikovsky, poor Tatyana

The “Russian soul is a mystery” (for other cultures). What a stereotype! But sometimes listening to foreign singers performing vocals for Russian chamber music or operas; I think that not only the soul, but Russian music as well is a mystery to them.

That thought hit me yesterday evening at the opening of International classic music festival, “Kharkov assembly” (http://www.city.kharkov.ua/en/news/festival-harkivski-asambleyi-startuye-30-veresnya-9804.html ) which is celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. It took place it the small hall of the Kharkov Opera and Ballet Theatre. The status of “international” requires inviting guests from abroad, who come here right before the festival and perform with the local orchestra. It’s usually a great risk because they have a couple (or even less) rehearsals with a new conductor or singer, or both a new conductor and singer which is worse, and right after have to go on stage. They basically have no time to become perfectly coordinated and arrange some necessary “teamwork”. This is a good excuse for all the weak parts in the concert program, but sometimes even this doesn’t work. I want to tell only about one piece, which made me unenthusiastic about the musicians.

So, there were three foreigners in: one in the orchestra, the conductor from UK, and the soprano from UK (let’s do without naming names). Also, there was the scene of Tatyana’s letter from “Eugene Onegin” (Yevgeniy Onegin) by Tchaikovsky, of course, based on Pushkin’s “novel in verse”.

It went wrong almost from the beginning. The orchestra started properly, in active tempo, but the heavy voice of the soprano wasn’t able to handle it. Apparently, it’s either a weariness of 30 years on the stage or too much experience that made itself manifest. She didn’t even sound close to the “18 year old Tatyana” experiencing her first strong emotions (I know it’s not tactful to mention a female performer's age in a review, beg my pardon).

So conductor got all confused and slowed the instrumentalists down. The first part of the scene of Tatyana’s letter is the fastest and consequently tempo started getting slower and slower and finally reached the point where it was almost unbearable and you could hear all motives of each instrument of orchestra and all their roughness (affected by the lack of rehearsing) which would have been unnoticeable if they had played livelier. Once the soprano finished, the conductor let the instrumentalists play the coda in normal tempo which couldn’t be considered normal anymore because the plan for the whole scene got messed up.

Usually the audience complains about the horrible accent of foreign performers singing in Russian, but it appeared to be the less significant of the problems in this situation.

Sighs of relief and loud applause appeared after this short, but what seemed quite longer disaster. If I were a good girl, instead of all these words I would say: “We heard a new interpretation of the image of Tatyana performed by English singer, marked by deep thoughtful work on intonation, original tempo and dramaturgical plan”. And I will very much likely write it soon but in a different place, in a different language.

Posted by Helen

Some Swans in Odessa

            (This is a response to the previous post by John)

Visiting the Odessa Opera House was a total surprise for me. First of all, I was astonished because it was John’s idea and he had never before expressed the slightest interest in opera or ballet. Actually I remember hearing him say something in the past about disliking opera but the lack of evidence doesn’t allow me to prove this.

Secondly, I have never seen the Kharkov Opera theatre as crowded as I saw Odessa’s Opera House, especially during the summer months which are considered to be the “dead season” to all those who perform at, help run or attend the theatre. Surprisingly, there was no scene with celebrities from abroad, no scandalous director, and no innovations. It was a strict classic hackneyed performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet. I would never have expected tickets to be completely sold out. It was absolutely fascinating to see all those people trying to get access to the ticket box after it was closed or looking for some different ways to get into the theatre.

The performance itself could have been better considering the agitation that was displayed outside. This could be mainly regarded to the orchestra, which wasn’t massive enough to drown the sound of dancing. It was passable during single dances and even pas de trois, but not during the corps de ballet collective dances. Some giggling went through the audience when we were hearing the heavy sound of “little swans” feet. In my opinion they decided to cut down on expenses and sent  most of the musicians on vacation. This was very smart, because people go to ballet not to listen but mainly to see, so who cares about music and aesthetics of performance?

Anyway, the Opera House has its special “artistic” atmosphere, with its luxurious décor and interior, which at once reminded me of all the world’s best-looking theaters such as La Scala, Prague, Dresden, Vienna Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. But of course I have only seen them in movies and pictures.

Swan Lake in Odessa Opera House, 2011, July, 6th

Defining the style of the Opera House, John somehow came up with Italian baroque, but I’ve read only about its referring to Viennese baroque (all building) and French rococo (audience hall interior).

Some more interior photos. Odessa Opera House, 2011, July, 6th

                                 

It’s a pity for me, but I would never think about a style mixture like this looking at Kharkov Opera and Ballet Theatre, which gained a folk title of “Fantômas castle”, because of its horrendous and somehow hilarious, heavy, soviet-type architecture. To add fuel to the fire, the project of this building, made by Soviet architerctor Mirgorodskiy was planned for both Kiev and Kharkov but was rejected by the first one.

Posted by Helen