'War and Peace' Opens; Mishap Raises
Concerns
February 16, 2002
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
The Metropolitan Opera's ambitious and long-awaited premier
production of Prokofiev's epic "War and Peace," based
on the Tolstoy novel, arrived on Thursday night, conducted by
Valery Gergiev, who had spearheaded the project from the start.
The stirring performance that Mr. Gergiev elicited from the Met
orchestra, chorus and huge cast (68 roles sung by 52 singers) was
an artistic milestone for the company.
But the reception of this important premiere is likely to be
charged by debate over the set, designed by George Tsypin, and
the mishap it produced in the final minutes of the performance.
Prokofiev's long (nearly four hours of music) and daunting opera,
composed in the early 1940's and revised several times, is
structured in 13 scenes that move from mansions and ballrooms in
Moscow and St. Petersburg to battlefields during Napoleon's
failed Russian campaign in 1812.
This production by Andrei Konchalovsky in his company debut is
dominated by a rotating domelike platform upon which all
the action is staged. In effect the entire cast, which also
includes 120 choristers, 41 dancers and 227 supernumeraries
as well as a horse, a dog and a goat, perform the work atop a
hill. It was hard to watch the stage without worrying that
someone was going to fall into the orchestra pit. Sure enough,
with about six minutes left in the final scene, that's what
happened.
A supernumerary, later identified as Simon Deonarian, portraying
one of Napoleon's defeated soldiers fleeing Moscow, lost his
footing and went over the edge into the pit. He was caught by a
safety net erected for the production, which most people in the
audience could not see.
Mr. Gergiev stopped the performance so the stage managers could
make sure the actor was uninjured, while the audience buzzed with
concern. Once reassured, Mr. Gergiev completed the performance.
Only afterward did the Met's general manager, Joseph Volpe,
appear on stage with Mr. Deonarian to tell the audience that
"our retreating French grenadier lost his way in the
snowstorm" but was fine.
Mr. Volpe and the young actor seemed rather jocular about the
whole thing. But the misstep raises questions not just over the
safety of performers but opera production in general.
Clearly, the idea was to devise a relatively spare set that would
present striking dramatic images. At times it works. In Scene 1,
when Prince Andrei (the baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky) rhapsodizes
about Natasha, the young woman he hopes will rescue him from
despair about life, he stands atop the domed stage with only his
writing table and chair nearby and an expanse of inky, star-
filled night behind him. He looks like Saint-Exup?ry's Little
Prince on his lonely planet. And in the war scenes when the
bedraggled but unbroken Russian troops rally themselves atop the
domed stage, now covered with grayish dirt, bombs burst in the
distance and the sky fills with fiery colors and clouds of smoke.
Still moments of vivid imagery do not compensate for the overall
awkwardness that the set produces in many ways. For one the
singers seem understandably leery as they move about the stage,
especially when they step at all close to its front edge. This
tentativeness affects their performances. Even the powerful bass
Samuel Ramey, a fearless actor who is mostly excellent as Field
Marshal Kutuzov, the frail but unbowed leader of the Russian
troops, seemed a little distracted whenever he edged toward the
audience.
Many scenes, including the fashionable ball given by Natasha's
godmother, Maria Akhrosimova, portrayed here by the venerable
mezzo- soprano Elena Obraztsova, are played at the flattened top
of the dome where the footing is safer. But this places the
singers far from Mr. Gergiev, who is way down in the pit, which
surely explained the occasional coordination glitches between the
choristers and orchestra on this night.
Finally, the set is terribly distracting for the audience. How
can you be swept away by the operatic drama when you are worried
about the singers' safety? When Mr. Gergiev resumed the
performance after the fall, those six or so minutes of music were
nerve-wracking to watch. At one point when three little girls
walked toward the stage rim and sat in a circle amid the
celebrating Russian throngs, you sensed the whole audience
getting fearful.
It's a shame that one element of the production is so
problematic, for this "War and Peace" remains a
significant achievement. Mr. Gergiev believes that Prokofiev
belongs in the pantheon of 20th-century opera composers. Last
year he conducted the Met's premier production of "The
Gambler," the first Prokofiev opera the company had ever
performed and a stunning success. Now comes "War and
Peace," perhaps Prokofiev's masterpiece.
Tolstoy's novel, with its hundreds of characters, complex
subplots, sermonizing and historical tracts, might seem an
unwieldy source. But Prokofiev, who wrote the libretto with Mira
Alexandrovna Mendelson (at the time, his common law wife),
assumed that his audience knew this book intimately. In a way he
was simply presenting musical dramatizations of
key scenes and characters.
The pacing is at times intentionally deliberate. Prokofiev tries
to emulate the rambling conversation that is the essence of the
novel's aristocratic scenes by giving his characters time to
gossip, exchange confidences and voice asides. The ingenious
aspects of the music come through in its details. The orchestra
enshrouds the vocal lines with harmonically pungent commentary.
The score abounds in elusive tunes like the insinuating waltz
that Natasha and Andrei first dance to, tunes that you can't get
out of your head but can't quite get straight in your memory.
Tolstoy's philosophical ruminations are replaced by stirring
patriotic choruses for the defiant Russian people. While
composing the opera, Prokofiev came under pressure from Stalin's
All-Union Committee on Arts Affairs to turn it into a propaganda
vehicle for the Soviet war effort. If these brassy choruses are
somewhat bombastic, there is a subtext of foreboding in
Prokofiev's clashing harmonies and asymmetrical phrases.
Mr. Gergiev, who owns this score, never goes for superficial
excitement, trusting in its elegance and richness. The orchestra
played valiantly and mostly beautifully. The Met chorus sang with
full-voiced fervor.
Though a co-production with the Kirov Opera of St. Petersburg,
the sets, based on Kirov designs, were mostly built at the Met.
The colorful and historically accurate costumes, some 1,000 of
them, are by Tatiana Noginova in
her Met debut.
Prince Andrei may be Mr. Hvorostovsky's most impressive work at
the Met to date. He sang with burnished sound and brought dashing
charisma to the role while conveying the prince's despondency. In
an impressive debut as Natasha, the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko
revealed her clear, ample, cool Nordic voice. Though a lovely
young woman, she was not well served by Mr. Konchalovsky's
direction, which must be responsible for the silent movie clich?s
that
marred her portrayal.
Ekaterina Semenchuk, a mezzo- soprano also in her debut, was
Natasha's sweet-voiced cousin Sonya. The Russian tenor Gegam
Grigorian was affecting as Count Pierre, who is chuckled over in
aristocratic circles for being chubby and
decent but who takes heroic action when his country and friends
are endangered. The tenor Oleg Balashov had a strong debut as the
two-timing Prince Anatol Kuragin, and the mezzo-soprano Victoria
Livengood was appropriately
catty as his sister Helene, the self-appointed czarina of Moscow
society. Vassily Gerello lent his husky baritone to
the role of Napoleon.
It would be impossible to mention all the notable performances in
this cast. Suffice it to say that even in small roles the Met
recruited strong singers like Jane Shaulis, Sergei Koptchak and
Marjorie Elinor Dix for an impressive ensemble effort, marred
only by the awkward and still risky set. One can only hope that
the Met takes steps to reduce the risk for the remaining
performances. They continue through March 19.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/16/arts/music/16WAR.html?ex=1014968880&ei=1&en=8d12cfd96461c377
(C) The New York Times, 2002
February 2002 Performance Diary