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Burns night

London
Coliseum
01/23/2003 -  and 25, 28 January, 1, 8, 11 February 2003
Modest Musorgsky: Khovanshchina
Pavlo Hunka (Shaklovity), Andrew Rees (Kuzka), Robin Legatte (Scribe), Willard W. White (Ivan Khovansky), Claire Weston (Emma), Tom Randle (Andrey Khovansky), Jill Grove (Marfa), John Tomlinson (Dosifey), David Rendall (Golitsyn)

ENO Chorus and Orchestra

Oleg Caetani (conductor), Francesca Zambello, Julia Pevzner (directors)

Francesca Zambello's production of Khovanshchina was almost universally praised on its first appearance at the ENO in 1994, and (seen on 25 January) it is still a powerful experience. However wobbly the ENO's situation looks off-stage, the opera is still in good shape. Musorgsky's apparently fragmentary historical opera, here performed in Shostakovich's realisation, is a chaotic depiction of chaotic times, an allegory of both the slowly reforming Russia of the time it was written and the general anguish that arises when an old order has to change. Comparisons with the travails of the Labour Party and of the ENO itself spring readily to mind. All the participants honestly believe that they are striving for what is best for Russia; even the thug apparatchik Shaklovity sings of his love for his country. But each also has a profound flaw, sensuality, self-doubt, or both, although in the Old Believers it is simple if holy intransigence.

The confrontation of desire and repression, ambition and anxiety, is expressed in lucid language and always engaging melody in a way that is really not so far from Monteverdi, while (as in Boris Godunov) the drama is more or less Shakespearean. Also as in Boris (and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the people are another major character. Zambello and Pevzner, working on a simple set made up of four adaptable machines, made the people of Moscow and the Old Believers into overwhelming dramatic forces, commensurate with their musical power. The individual protagonists were strongly characterized, but palpably out of their depth, the would-be modernizer Golitsyn as much as the opportunistic feudal Khovansky father and son, and even the humane but unworldly Dosifey, leader of the Old Believers. A dim image of Peter the Great hovers on the screens that form part of the set, in counterpoise to the chaotically solid people.

The musical performance as a whole was superb, the orchestra and chorus as much as the well chosen cast. If the overall effect wasn't as sure of what it was about as the Kirov's performance was at Covent Garden in 2000, it had a moving elegiac mood behind the turmoil. Oleg Caetani, Russian trained, preferred clarity and expression to boom and roar, and the orchestra provided it. The chorus were as good as they have ever been, amazingly, considering the impossible position they are in under the threat of drastic redundancies.

The principals were all substantial. David Rendall's Golitsyn was an avatar of Eisenstein's Kerensky, an intellectual progressive undermined by personal weakness, slimy and unreliable, but vocally rock solid. A brace of Wotans confronted each other as the forces of reaction: Willard W. White was charismatic and self-indulgent as Ivan Khovansky, cavorting stylishly with the exquisite Persian dancers in the pool; John Tomlinson as Dosifey was intense but human, bearded like God in an icon. Neither of them is quite in his vocal prime, but both sang and acted every note. A newer generation of stellar singing actors was represented by Tom Randle as Andrey Khovansky, as much a sensualist as his father but barely in control. As Shaklovity Pavlo Hunka, British of Ukrainian descent, confirmed the promise of full-strength Russian tenorhood that he first showed in Lady Macbeth of Mtensk a couple of years ago. Jill Grove, making her London premiere, was superb and gloriously musical as Marfa, the old believer torn between erotic and religious obsession. When the Old Believers, dressed in white, ascended in ecstasy at the end, it seemed an inevitable conclusion to her passion.



HE Elsom

 

 

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