23, 26 and 30 November at the Concert Hall will see further performances of the new production of Tchaikovsky's opera The Oprichnik. Here is a fragment from an interview with the opera's stage director Viktor Vysotsky.
– How long have you been thinking about The Oprichnik?
– Several years ago I began listening to recordings of The Oprichnik – with the conductor Alexander Orlov and the All-Union Radio Chorus and Orchestra, recorded by Gennady Provatorov in 1980 featuring Tamara Milashkina and Vladimir Matorin. These were monumental, massive canvases with slow tempi, in the style of the Bolshoi Theatre; today they sound somewhat archaic. A deeper impression came with the recording of Gennady Rozhdestvensky in 2003, made after a performance at the theatre in Cagliari in Sardinia. There the plot unfolds more dynamically in a more concentrated form, because this opera relies on the conductor’s powerful presence. And I was amazed at the number of unusually beautiful instances in the work. The performers, it must be said, do not always share my enthusiasm, but I am prepared to speak about this score only in the most adulatory terms.
– What has been most challenging for you as a stage director with this production?
– The combination of the soloists and the crowd scenes, because it takes place at the Concert Hall where there is no curtain – you can see everything. But the age of Ivan the Terrible was the age of Shakespeare, and so minimal sets is no bad thing. In the centre we have a podium, four metres by six; the solo ensembles and the solos are all performed on it, it’s an analogue of front of stage. The crowd is situated beneath. The oprichniks are split into singers and dancers. The singers are on the balcony, while eight – villains dressed in black – perform the dance movements on the stage.
– As the author of a series of lectures at the Mariinsky-II entitled A Literary Hero in the “Distorting Mirror” of Opera, what changes in the play’s characters do you see in the composer’s opera?
– The most important thing is that Natasha’s features have changed – they have become her mother’s own. Faced with the nobleman Molchan Mitkov, Tchaikovsky has the same responsibility that Pushkin had with Salieri. In the opera he is transformed into a lowly and base merchant, whereas in the play he is a noble man who is prepared to sacrifice himself, saving the people who have been taken by the oprichniks, he has the courage to speak the truth to the Tsar’s face. With Tchaikovsky he’s just a pompous rival.
The third thing is that in Tchaikovsky’s opera there is no Tsar. But he needs no Ivan the Terrible. This is not an opera about a Tsar. This is why he gives Ivan the Terrible’s rejoinders to his vassal, Prince Vyazminsky. And then this character takes on a depth of his own: he is majestic like the Tsar, and yet he grovels. In depicting this character Tchaikovsky is more vivid than Lazhechnikov. With Tchaikovsky Ivan the Terrible becomes a “voice-over” persona, a figure of suppression.
– In the text of his drama Lazhechnikov makes several references to Karamzin’s History of the Russian State. How do you plan to portray the realities of that age to the public?
– We’re not creating a historical production. Power and its instruments of violence have always been immoral. There have been investigations at any time. You can understand why this opera was rarely performed in the Soviet era, the allusions would have been too strong and direct – to join the party or not.
– The word “oprichnik” is generally transliterated in foreign languages, like “sputnik”. How would you explain the moral dilemma of the protagonist to western audiences?
– The main problem of Andrei, and not just his and not just of the time of the oprichnina, is to define for himself which characteristic of serving power does not overstep the mark. To what degree can one collaborate with evil, is there any justification for conformity and pragmatism? If you have been drawn in involuntarily, but yourself are not drawn to evil then evil will eat you up. You have to be a villain, and the protagonist of The Oprichnik Andrei is anything but.
Speaking with Anna Petrova
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