Symphonies of Donbass: Gergiev closed the concert season with Prokofiev's premiere
Sergei Prokofiev's rarely performed opera "Semyon Kotko" turned 85 years old. By this date, Valery Gergiev and director Sergei Novikov returned the composer's work to the poster of the Bolshoi Theater and closed the 249th season of the GABTA. Moreover, the show was shown in two formats — expensive and elite on the Historical Stage, and at the same time free and publicly available. You could watch the broadcast directly on the Theater Square on the big screen or watch it online. Izvestia chose the option with the people on Teatralnaya.
Affordable elite Theater
On the evening of July 20, the Bolshoi's director Valery Gergiev organized a real celebration for fans of the musical theater. A huge screen was installed in front of the colonnade of the GABTA. On the contrary, an amphitheater was built on the square near the fountain, surrounded by fragrant roses. At 19:00, a live broadcast began from the Historical Stage of the Bolshoi Theater. The audience in the park could watch the premiere of Sergei Prokofiev's opera for free. To prevent the weather from spoiling the mood of the audience, colorful raincoats were given to everyone at the entrance.
The square near the theater was surrounded by an iron fence. In order not to cause a stampede, passageways with metal detectors were set up. The guards invited passersby to go to convenient places in the amphitheater.
"There's a place to sit down and even lie down, come on in," the guard smiled.
Passing foreign tourists couldn't believe their eyes. A family from Qatar was surprised that it was possible to watch on the street what is currently on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater. And when they saw on the screen the head of the Bolshoi Theater and the Mariinsky Orchestra at the conductor's desk, they shouted joyfully: "Oh, Gergiev!"
— I listened to the opera "Semyon Kotko" on the Historical stage of the GABTA in 1975, — said Victor from Germany. — I even remembered that Boris Pokrovsky, the grandfather of Misha Yefremov, was the director of the play. And the great Leventhal designed the production. Prokofiev's opera made an indelible impression on me then. I didn't expect to see her on the screen like that again.
The whole world, the whole nation
Semyon Kotko is Prokofiev's first opera, created after his return to the USSR, in 1935-1936. The opera premiered in 1940. And the last performance was on July 26, 1985. Since then, the play has disappeared from the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theater. After 40 years, Valery Gergiev brought Prokofiev's opera back to the Historical stage. In the new version of Semyon Kotko, the maestro is the musical director. The director of the play is Sergey Novikov. The main roles are performed by leading soloists of the opera company and invited artists of the Bolshoi Theater. The role of Semyon Kotko was given to the soloist of the Helikon Opera, tenor Igor Morozov.
The libretto of the opera is based on the novel "I, the Son of the Working People" by Valentin Kataev. These are the first words of the Red Army's military oath. Kataev's story was a great success in the 1930s, it was dramatized and filmed under the title "A soldier was coming from the front." And Prokofiev named his work after the hero, "Semyon Kotko."
The events of the story are transferred to the time of the Civil War and the German occupation of Ukraine in 1918. The main character, an artillery soldier Kotko, a St. George cavalier, returns from the front to his homeland, to a Ukrainian village. He finds a new order in the village. Communists, chairman of the village Council Remenyuk (bass Vladislav Popov) and a sailor of the Black Sea Fleet Tsarev (baritone Andrey Potaturin), share the landowner's land.
The daughter of a wealthy peasant, Nikanor Tkachenko (bass Mikhail Kazakov), Sophia (mezzo-soprano Svetlana Lachina), her father does not want to marry poor Kotko. He decided to attach the girl to the landowner Klembovsky (tenor Roman Muravitsky). Together with Tkachenko's potential son-in-law, he is waiting for the arrival of the Germans, for whom, in their opinion, the old order should return. Meanwhile, an advanced Gaydamak platoon enters the village. On a tip from Tkachenko, the Gaydamaks execute sailor Tsarev. His fiancee Lyubka (soprano Olga Seliverstova), seeing the execution, loses her mind. In the morning, a German detachment arrives. Tkachenko gives Chief Lieutenant von Virchow (tenor Nikolai Kazansky) a list of unreliable peasants, among whom he specifically points to Seeds.…
Prokofiev's opera is heavily populated. The choir has a place to turn around. The voluminous decorations created according to the sketches of Maria Vysotskaya are also striking. A Ukrainian farm with thatched huts and a log church was erected on the Historical stage of the GABTA. Rotating in a circle, the complex scenery is updated as the action progresses. In the second act, the audience witnesses a fire that is being extinguished by the entire farm. The artists Dmitry Ivanchenko and Ruslan Mayorov were responsible for the plausibility. Well, when a cart pulls onto the stage, which is harnessed to a black horse in leather boots, there is no limit to the delight of the audience. The bravest viewers, contrary to the instructions not to film the performance, photograph the beautiful animal.
— It seems to me very important that the Bolshoi Theater in the Year of Defender of the Fatherland puts on "Semyon Kotko", an opera that seems to be written about our days, — says director Sergey Novikov. — Sergey Prokofiev, having been born in Donbass, felt the local colors perfectly. There is a huge range of emotions that can be experienced at the performance, from the charm of the southern night to the dull annoyance due to the unlearned lessons of history. "A soldier was coming from the front and now he's back at the front!" sings Semyon Kotko in the finale. He is happy with the certainty of his rightness and the inevitable victory of good over evil.
At the same time, when the premiere was broadcast on the facade of the Bolshoi Theater, the opera "Semyon Kotko" was shown on the big screen at the October cinema in the capital. The performance of the GABTA could be estimated at the price of a blockbuster. Or you could sit at home and watch the broadcast online.
Oddly enough, the cancellation of the tour in Italy by Mariinsky and Valery Gergiev is also connected with the premiere, which ended the season at the Bolshoi Theater the day before. Among the arguments against the Italian concert was the opera "Semyon Kotko". Because its plot is connected with Ukraine and Donbass. Those who sought to cancel the performances of Russian artists in Italy noted the parallels between the events of a century ago and the present. It's hard to say what Prokofiev himself would have said about this, but the GABTA leadership and Gergiev himself did not react to these versions in any way.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
