{"id":1473,"date":"2016-08-11T13:12:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T11:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=1473"},"modified":"2016-08-18T22:01:52","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T20:01:52","slug":"herman-gone-mad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=1473","title":{"rendered":"Herman Gone Mad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who has read Pushkin\u2019s Queen of Spades<\/em> is aware of how far Modest\u2019s libretto departs from the prototype of Pyotr Tchaikovsky\u2019s opera. Pushkin\u2019s Hermann is a repulsive cynic who merely pretends to love Lizavyeta Ivanovna in order to find out the Countess\u2019 secret. His operatic counterpart hits bottom, torn between his feelings for Liza and his obsessive desire to get rich \u2013 in which he sees the only recipe for happiness and freedom. The one does not sit down at the table at the casino because he does not want to \u2018sacrifice the essential in the hope of obtaining the superfluous\u2019; the second does not play because he simply does not have the money to do so. The cowed Lizavyeta from the novella is only the old lady\u2019s poor ward: having realized her own na\u00efvet\u00e9, her eyes fill with tears, she kicks the scoundrel out of the boudoir, proceeds to faint at the funeral and then disappear from the narrative, reappearing only during the epilogue, where the author explains that she \u2018has married a very nice young man, who holds such-and-such a post and possesses a quite sizeable fortune.\u2019 The proud Liza from the opera is the Countess\u2019 granddaughter, engaged to a real, live prince, but despite that madly in love with the mysterious Herman, who divests her of all her illusions and drives her to suicide in the current of the Neva. Pushkin\u2019s Hermann goes mad and spends the rest of his life in an insane asylum muttering the magic card formula under his breath. Tchaikovsky\u2019s Herman shoots himself in the heart and dies with Liza\u2019s image before his eyes, begging for forgiveness from Prince Yeletsky, whom the two of them had betrayed. The novella\u2019s plot takes place in Pushkin\u2019s era; the opera\u2019s time frame has been moved back to the reign of Catherine the Great.<\/p>\n

The divergences could be further multiplied, superficially to the disadvantage of the libretto of Queen of Spades<\/em>, which many researchers have accused of dramaturgical incoherence and trivialization of the message of Pushkin\u2019s novella. For the latter is indeed a masterpiece bespeaking masterful play with literary convention and with the reader, who remains in suspense to the very end as to what really happened, and what is a figment of the protagonist\u2019s sick imagination. The reader must make a personal decision as to whether Tomsky\u2019s story summing up the plot is a fairytale, a metaphor for the randomness governing human fortunes, a sharper\u2019s anecdote about playing with marked cards, or perhaps all of the above at once. Besides, Pushkin knew what he was writing about: he himself was a passionate pharaoh player and, if we are to believe the reports of his contemporaries, he came a hair\u2019s breadth one night from losing the fifth chapter of Eugene Onegin<\/em> in a game with General Zagrazhsky.<\/p>\n

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The finale of Scene III. Photo: Robert Workman.<\/p>\n

It is no wonder, then, that the first attempts to \u2018re-Pushkinize\u2019 the opera were made less than forty years after Queen of Spades<\/em>\u2019 St.\u00a0Petersburg world premi\u00e8re. It is interesting, however, that in all of these attempts, a thread appeared that had nothing to do even with Pushkin\u2019s narrative, let alone Tchaikovsky\u2019s. Konstantin Stanislavsky \u2013 in his staging from 1928 \u2013 made Herman the victim of a \u2018politically hostile\u2019 idea that finally led him to madness and ruin. Vsevolod Meyerhold\u2019s concept (1935 production) was born amid the atmosphere of the Stalinist great terror: his Herman is from the beginning a reject on the verge of a breakdown, going around the bend under the influence of his obsession with cards. Each era in theatrical history is governed by its own order (or law of chaos, depending on one\u2019s viewpoint). Even though Queen of Spades<\/em> has made its way into the worldwide repertoire against much more resistance than Onegin<\/em>, one could write entire volumes about its interpretations by stage directors, including the most recent one by Stefan Herheim, who turned it into an autobiographical tale about a musician imprisoned in the cage of his own sexuality.<\/p>\n

However, before we set out to correct Tchaikovsky\u2019s opera, it is worthwhile to realize that Queen of Spades<\/em> is a separate work and, in certain respects, even more multilayered than Pushkin\u2019s prototype. The librettist and composer took on the risky task of combining the antihero of an Enlightenmentesque anecdote with a red-blooded human being \u2013 specifically, a Russian Romantic hero. The lishniy chelovek<\/em> \u2013 a superfluous, worthless man \u2013 is the collective victim of repression by Tsar Nikolai\u00a0I after the suppression of the Decembrist revolt, a young nobleman with no prospects in life, motivated by a delusive feeling of superiority and equally vain faith in the power of his own intellect. The protagonist of Eugene Onegin<\/em> \u2013 but also of later works by Turgenev, Goncharov and Dostoyevsky \u2013 with whom most of the 19th<\/sup>-century Russian intelligentsia sympathized, including Tchaikovsky. This is why the composer sobbed over \u2018poor Herman\u2019 as he finished writing the scene in which the suicide\u2019s former friends bid him farewell with mournful song.<\/p>\n

Appearances notwithstanding, the original idea of moving the narrative back to the era of Catherine the Great brings with it just as many incoherencies as later attempts to \u2018restore\u2019 Pushkin\u2019s context to the opera (for example, the arietta from Gr\u00e9try\u2019s opera is at least half a century removed from the raptures of youth mentioned by the Countess). Tchaikovsky\u2019s Queen of Spades<\/em> draws on the treasury of tradition as much as it charges off into the future. Herman \u2013 even in an officer\u2019s costume \u2013 is closer to Stavrogin and Verkhovensky from Dostoyevsky\u2019s Demons<\/em> than to the handsome boys as perfect as a painting of the great empress\u2019 era. The musical narrative \u2013 despite the Mozartean pastiche in Act\u00a0II \u2013 at times moves beyond Tchaikovsky\u2019s era, for instance in Scene\u00a0IV, where the composer builds up a mood of terror by using whole-tone scales. Let us add to this an entire arsenal of quotes, crypto-quotes and paraphrases, and spice it up with numerological symbolism (among other things, three acts, seven scenes and one Herman singing tirelessly throughout the entire work \u2013 in other words, a structural counterpart to the \u2018three, seven, ace\u2019 formula); and we get a work so complex that it is really not worthwhile to \u2018enrich it\u2019 via attempts to superimpose new meanings upon it.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Three, seven, ace. Herman (Peter Wedd) finds out the secret of the three cards. Photo: Robert Workman.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, it is this path that young stage director Rodula Gaitanou has followed in her debut on the stage of London\u2019s Opera Holland Park in an atmosphere of great expectations (the creator of the previous staging in 2006 was Martin Lloyd-Evans). Her task was all the more difficult in that this summer theatre \u2013 excellently-designed, but nonetheless open-air, separated from a public park only by a thin layer of tent canvas \u2013 is not particularly friendly to performers, who must constantly struggle with noises from the wind, helicopters flying over the city and moorhens rooting about in the bushes wafting in from offstage. The conditions also distract the audience, who observe most of the show from an \u2018auditorium\u2019 enveloped in waning daylight. The decision to play out the entire action in a semicircular space highlighted by the rhythm of Classical arches, in which simple props appear sporadically (stage design by Cordelia Chisholm), turned out to be extraordinarily apt \u2013 especially in combination with the sensibly-placed lighting (Simon Corder) and dazzling beauty of the costumes. Gaitanou did not carry out any \u2018re-Pushkinization\u2019 of Queen of Spades<\/em>, but rather set the narrative in the framework of our collective imagination of 19th<\/sup>-century Russia, naturally approaching chronologically the time when the opera was written. Despite everything, however, it is evident that she read Pushkin\u2019s novella carefully and with understanding, and then proceeded to utilize this knowledge for the benefit of the production. First of all, she disoriented the audience, skillfully disrupting the superficially realistic theatrical convention with a growing number of interventions \u2018from the hereafter\u2019, to which no one paid any attention at the beginning, only to awaken in Scene\u00a0V in a world of truly Goyaesque visions and nightmares. Secondly, she alluded to the memories of Pushkin fans who remember how Hermann grabbed Lizavyeta by the hand and then disappeared before the girl managed to recover from her terror; how he later imagined the ace (queen of spades?) in the form of a giant spider; how the door slammed in the entrance hall \u2013 all of these gestures and images found a convincing theatrical counterpart in her concept.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, she did not manage to play out the scenes that are absent from Pushkin in an equally flawless manner. The initial episode in the summer garden dragged on mercilessly; the ball in Act\u00a0II did not manage to take on sufficient panache; the otherwise wittily-conceived \u2018pastoral scene\u2019 clearly stood out from the rest of the concept. The production only really swung into action after the intermission, placed by the organizers before the second scene of Act\u00a0II. One of the most beautiful moments was Herman\u2019s oneiric dance with the half-conscious Countess, whom the young officer caresses first from a distance, himself horrified, not knowing whether the old lady recognizes in him an old lover, an illegitimate son, or only her nemesis. Liza\u2019s suicide looked equally promising until the director decided that the tormented lady-love would shoot herself with a pistol taken away from Herman \u2013 it would have sufficed to make do with the even so already-utilized \u2018engulfing\u2019 of the heroine by undulating draperies that, with the aid of skillfully-placed lighting, would have given a convincing illusion of the waves of the Neva closing over the suicide. This disappointment was recompensed by the daring scene in the gambling den, from the players\u2019 decadent dances straight through to Herman\u2019s death in the finale carried out on a tilted table in the worrisome company of two ghosts: Liza, dressed in a white wedding dress; and her saturnine guardian angel, in the person of the Countess.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Liza (Natalya Romaniw) looks out for Herman on the banks of the Winter Canal. Photo: Robert Workman.<\/p>\n

Gaitanou was clearly inclined towards the concept of Meyerhold, who imprinted his Herman with insanity from the very beginning of his production. Peter Wedd \u2013 after the beautifully-sung aria \u2018Ya imyeni yeyo nye znayu\u2019 \u2013 descended into madness too quickly, which weakened the internal tension of the later \u2018Prosti, nyebesnoye sozdanye\u2019, which in an ideal rendition lays bare the contrast between lyrical manipulation and the triumphal, indeed ecstatic feeling of a goal achieved. Fortunately, the man is an intelligent and tireless singer who, starting in Scene\u00a0IV, built the dramaturgy of the character basically alone \u2013 with a voice consciously \u2018dirtied\u2019 in the middle register, overwhelming at the top of his range, as sonorous as a baritone in the low register, terrifying at the turning points in the plot. In the person of Natalya Romaniw (Liza), he found the perfect partner \u2013 the phenomenally-gifted Welsh singer has a true spinto <\/em>soprano voice, full, round and dark in colour; she manages her phrasing with equal passion and musicality to that of her onstage lover, which found arresting expression in the duet from Act\u00a0III, preceded by the heartbreaking monologue \u2018Akh! istomilas ya goryem\u2019, a resignation-laden lullaby for herself, a woman taking leave of an unfulfilled dream. The superbly-characterized Rosalind Plowright in the role of the Countess did not, unfortunately, manage to avoid falling into caricature: I grew up on the legendary performances of the Russian contraltos, among them Fayina Petrova and Nadezhda Obukhova, and I know that singing this role in a secure voice with balanced registers builds up considerably more terror than the most superb display of acting ability. Richard Burkhard (Tomsky), vocally accurate and conscious of his role, made a very good impression on me; Grant Doyle (Yeletsky) \u2013 none-too-authoritative, though impressive in his cultivated phrasing \u2013 somewhat less so. The scene in the gambling den was \u2018stolen\u2019 by Chekalinsky in the person of Aled Hall, one of the best British character tenors. Which does not change the fact that all previous impressions were eclipsed by Herman\u2019s last aria \u2018Shto nasha zhizn\u2019 and the final scene of the protagonist\u2019s death, filled out by a short, poignant a cappella<\/em> chorus that literally closed the dead man\u2019s eyes and left us with a feeling that in another world, the whole thing could have ended entirely differently.<\/p>\n

For the superb choir, singing with vocal production worthy of the Bolshoi Theatre ensemble in Moscow in its best years under music director Rozhdzhestvensky, I shall spare no compliments. It was somewhat more difficult to get used to the orchestra\u2019s playing under the baton of Peter Robinson, which made a wonderful impression in the \u2018Classical\u2019 pastiche passages, but lacked fullness of sound in the strings, the peculiarly \u2018Russian\u2019 breathing in long phrases and sufficient balance of proportions between the individual sections. I must admit, however, that in Scene\u00a0IV \u2013 in musical terms probably the best in the entire performance \u2013 the woodwinds brought out details from this score that are not often heard on the world\u2019s stages, and the obstinate sough of the violas against the background of the ominous pizzicato<\/em> in the \u2019celli and double basses in the initial measures of the scene recompensed me even the anemic cantilena of the violins.<\/p>\n

I was at the second performance of six \u2013 running with the same cast every two days, in immeasurably difficult acoustic conditions, at a summer opera ignored by most of my Polish professional colleagues. Featuring singers who give their all onstage. Most of them considerably better than the soloists in the aforementioned production from De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam under stage director Herheim. I shall allude again to Dostoyevsky and his Bobok<\/em> in the translation of Constance Garnett: \u2018I shall go to other tombs, I shall listen everywhere. Certainly one ought to listen everywhere and not merely at one spot in order to form an idea. [\u2026] But I shall certainly go back to those.\u2019<\/p>\n

Translated by: Karol Thornton-Remiszewski<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who has read Pushkin\u2019s Queen of Spades is aware of how far Modest\u2019s libretto departs from the prototype of Pyotr Tchaikovsky\u2019s opera. Pushkin\u2019s Hermann is a repulsive cynic who merely pretends to love Lizavyeta Ivanovna in order to find out the Countess\u2019 secret. His operatic counterpart hits bottom, torn between his feelings for Liza … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-mangusta","4":"post-1473","6":"format-standard","7":"category-posts-in-english","8":"category-wedrowki-operowe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1473"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1496,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions\/1496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}