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| Nina Stemme |
© Salzburger Festspiele / Thomas Aurin
Oxana Arkaeva
“Lady Macbeth von Mzensk.” Poignant staging and a musical
triumph of Mariss Jansons at the “Lady Macbeth von Mzensk” premiere in
Salzburg.
The
second premiere of Markus Hinterhäuser´s first season as an artistic director
of the Salzburg Festival was presented with opera “Lady Macbeth von Mzensk” by
Dmitri Shostakovich on August 2nd, 2017. Markus Hinterhäuser deserves a
praise for his fine sense and ability in bringing together artistically highly
creative team that delivered an intensely theatrical and musical experience. The
Libretto by Alexander Preis is based on the same-named novel by Nikolai Leskow.
The opera had its world premiere on January 22nd, 1934 at the Small Theater in
Leningrad, now Sankt Petersburg. Directed by Nikolay Smolich and conducted by
Samuil Samossud this performance became an enormous success. But, in 1936 after
Stalin attended one of the performances at the Bolshoi Theater on January 26th,
an unsigned article in communists’ newspaper "Pravda“ (The Truth) branded
the opera as "chaos instead of music" with all further performances
immediately suspended. Regardless of his international success, communist party
officials forced Shostakovich to rewrite a watered-down version of the opera which
had its premiere at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater
in Moscow on 8. January 1963. The
story revolves around a triple murder and a woman's struggle for the right to
self-determination and love. The boundlessly unhappy Katerina Ismailova is
married to a wealthy, but depressed and impotent merchant Sinowi Izmajlow. She
lives in a golden cage and longs for love and sexual fulfilment. As a new
worker, Sergey shows up, and she falls for him taking her chance for love and
passion and gradually killing everyone, who dared to stand in her way. The
turtle doves enjoy their happiness and even marry. But the murders are soon to
be discovered, and the whole affair ends unspectacularly in a prison camp in
Siberia. Instead of the golden cage, there is now a dreary prison cell, and the
unfaithful lover is fooling around with other women. Desperate Katerina,
plagued by guilt and repentance, sees no longer hope for herself and commits
suicide. The
staging by Andreas Kriegnburg, dominated by blood, violence, despair,
longing, and sex scenes is frighteningly a realistic one. Supported by the set
made by Harald B. Tork, naturalistic costumes by Tanja Hofmann, and
artful lighting by Stefan Bolliger, Kriegnburg shifts the action in the
Russian provincial town of Mzensk from 1865 to 1950th of the 20th century. In
the first act, we are confronted with a desolate market square surrounded by
the downturned, concrete-grey panel build labyrinth of stairs and balconies. On
both sides, large room modules are pulled in and out, one representing the
bedroom of Katerina and Zinowi and the other the office of Katerina's
father-in-law. Harrowing scenes of partying, drinking, dancing, copulating,
rape, murder and marriage are taking place here. The residents of the city appear as a grey,
dirty, drunken, zombie-like horde of losers, Vodka-drinkers, prostitutes and
thugs. After the break, the stage is transformed into a gruesome prison camp
full of despair and fight for survival.
The over-drawn, grotesque representation
of authorities’ violence and religious absurdity reinforce the cruelty of
Katerina’s reality. Unfortunately, this convincing staging got a pitiful crack
when, at the end of the opera, Katerina's poorly made doll double hang
comically suspended from one of the balconies. Shostakovich’s
score is intimately connected to the libretto and vividly shows an absurd
reality of the everyday life in the Soviet province. The language of his
striking, bold, longing and sometimes suffocating music mirror the dark, but at
the same time irrationally hopeful side of the mysterious Russian soul with its
almost superstitious orthodox yearning for guilt and sin. To musically
reproduce Shostakovich’s score, you not only need a conductor who knows it but
a great interpreter as well. Mariss Jansons, who made his Salzburg debut
as an opera conductor on this evening, was a hundred percent target hitting.
From the first minute on, it was evident: here we experience a master, a real
magician of the sound and dynamics intensity. With a never-ceasing energy,
concentration and lightness, the 74-year-old conductor pulled out a rushing,
ecstatic, martial, powerful, wild, furious, harsh, intimate, caricature and
parodist orchestral sound. The players of Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra followed
him with admiration and presented a homogeneous, full of finesse sound
complemented by brilliant woodwinds and violin solos. The
singer’s ensemble convinced throughout with good voices and a high acting
commitment. The debut of the soprano Nina Stemme as Katerina did not
entirely succeed. With her thick, dark-timbered soprano she sounded more like
Isolde and had some difficulties at the top. It was not until after the break
that she regained her usual form and managed to deliver a touching performance. Brandon Jovanovich as Sergei was remarkably convincing in its authentic
acting as a prick-driven womaniser. His Russian diction is remarkable, and his
voice sounds powerful without exaggerating. Dmitry Ulyanov in the role
of Katerina´s father-in-law succeeded in depicting a power-obsessed tyrant who
has a hygiene phobia and an unhealthy affection for her. Ulyanov sings this
demanding, high-pitched part with substantial endurance and has a strong stage
presence. Maxim Paster as Zinowi had his most powerful moment during his
murder scene, which he sang and acted exceptionally convincing. Stanislav
Trofimov as Pope sang with full-sounding, velvety bass and brought some
laughter into this woeful story. Ksenia Dudnikova as Sonetka and
Evgeniya Muraveva in the double role of Aksinja and slave labourer were for
me vocally and form acting side a discovery of the night. In
the end, the impressed audience gave a long-lasting applause for all member of
the cast, but especially for Mariss Jansons, orchestra and the excellent choir
(Ernst Raffelsberger). The performance bestowed us with a sense of
gratitude and humbleness for being able to experience an outstanding
performance and to have an enriching emotional encounter with the music of one
of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.
