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A couple of minutes before the start of the performance, accompanied by the general director of the theater Vladimir Urin, Tugan Sokhiev appeared in the hall, having officially taken the post of chief conductor since February 1. But he looked more like a guest of honor than a leader at his workplace. Everything shows that Mr. Sokhiev, visiting the Bolshoi in the pauses between his overseas contracts, is still far from the daily life of the theater and its pressing problems.

The Bolshoi Theater has been suffering not only from behind-the-scenes squabbles for more than a season, but, above all, from the lack of a creative concept. And only the upcoming "cleansing" of the old repertoire, conceived by the director, is indispensable here. A series of seemingly random premieres brings only episodic success. This time it was decided to take a win-win step. To take as the basis of the production is not the director's idea, but the scenography of Fyodor Fedorovsky's performance of 1955 - a large-scale, sovereign spectacle from the golden Soviet era of the Bolshoi Theater. And the audience, indeed, meets the “picture” with constant delight.

From the "Tsar's Bride" you can learn the history of Russia - it is about the third wife of Ivan the Terrible, Martha Saburova, who was poisoned by envious people two weeks after the wedding. In the opera, the story of the crime naturally takes on a romantic character. A lot of space is devoted to the unfortunate Martha, her fiancé Ivan Lykov, the royal guardsman Grigory Gryazny, who coveted the beauty, and her rival Lyubasha. The composer, not too fond of melodramatic plots, in 1899 decided to try himself in this particular genre, taking May's drama of the same name as a literary basis. And he created an absolute musical masterpiece.

So the only hero who is deprived of any word in the opera was Ivan the Terrible. On the other hand, an Israeli born in the USSR, Julia Pevzner, who was engaged as a director in the resumption of the production, put the tsar on a real zealous horse. And it should be noted that she famously collected in one performance a solid collection of not only directorial clichés, but also “imported” platitudes about Russia without any attempt to build a dramaturgy of relationships between the characters. Drunken dance, stabbing and love with coercion, of course, on a bear's skin are the hits of her directorial thought.

In such a situation, it was especially difficult for young soloists, to whom the premiere was given, for the most part. They do not have a great personal experience and their personalities have not yet formed, and, naturally, they cannot yet saturate the action with the internal tension of their own experiences. Therefore, despite the director's trickery, which is modest by modern standards, in fact, it turns out to be a concert performance in extremely spectacular costumes.

The girls - Agunda Kulaeva (Lyubasha), Olga Kulchinskaya (Marfa) have very beautiful, full-sounding voices. Almost all the men, unfortunately, turned out to be out of touch on the day of the premiere, to put it mildly: especially Alexander Kasyanov (Dirty). There were a lot of mistakes in the vocals of Roman Shulakov (Lykov), and the famous bass of the Bolshoi Vladimir Matorin (Sobakin) performed his entire part off notes. And only Marat Gali (healer-poisoner Bomelius) was successful in his role.

At the same time, it is impossible not to notice that the 82-year-old master Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who was behind the conductor’s podium, who urgently replaced Vasily Sinaisky, who extravagantly, on the same day, refused to continue working at the Bolshoi Theater last December, does not pay much attention to the capabilities and needs of the soloists. It gives Rimsky-Korsakov's score a slow-meditative sound rich in a huge palette of colors. It turns out very sensual and beautiful. It's just a pity that singers are sometimes at odds with the orchestra for ages.

The very eternity that the Bolshoi Theater has yet to overcome in order to become that “heraldic” pride of the country that we all need so much. But only the reincarnation of the past, even the most remarkable pages from the legendary history of the theater, this cannot be achieved.

"The Tsar's Bride" was written by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1898 in ten months, the premiere took place on October 22, 1899 at the Private Opera of S. I. Mamontov. The opera was ambiguously perceived by contemporaries, but it stood the test of time very successfully, remaining one of the composer's most sought-after creations today. Very close, in fact, to European opera, musically understandable and familiar to Western listeners, but at the same time equipped with rich Russian flavor and melos - this is exactly the work that is the best suited for presenting the possibilities of Russian opera to foreigners, it is the right place in a number of "visiting cards" of the Bolshoi Theater, the main opera house of Moscow.

And this is where the list of deceived expectations begins. Performances, as is now customary in opera houses, come with titles. In the case of foreign operas performed in the original language, a Russian translation is used there, but here, of course, a translation from Russian into English appeared. To be honest, Russian titles would not hurt either - an obvious minority of singers coped with diction at the top five, and the realistic concept of the production still caused the need to thoroughly understand every word. But the point is not even in this, but in the very vocabulary of translation: to translate the libretto of the opera, written in the century before last about the historical events of ancient times, in the language of second-rate Hollywood films is an unacceptable vulgar idea. After all, no one is trying to translate, for example, Shakespeare's "Macbeth" into Russian in the vocabulary of a detective series (although why not, since both of them are a crime drama about murders), but on the contrary, it turned out to be somehow possible ...

In fact, of course, this is not the greatest evil, but it is nevertheless disturbing. Paradoxically, directing hid a much greater danger, the place of which in the reconstructed production seems to be not so significant at all.

But first, a little digression. I, who fanatically love the opera genre, have always been disgusted by the radicalism of modern directors, and it seemed that there is nothing more beautiful than traditionalism in the director's concept. However, the premiere of The Tsar's Bride revealed a different problem. Not in radical modernization as such, not in emphasizing a hidden or far-fetched semantic layer - everything is clear with this, well, it is such a director's opera! In a sense, this approach gradually influenced us as viewers - we will never be the same again, but we will wait for the introduction of new technical capabilities on the stage and a reasonable “shaking out of mothballs”. But the greatest evil happens when the naphthalene caftans and fortresses to the ceiling are just in place, and the viewer receives the expected and familiar spectacle, but from the inside it is corroded by an absolutely inappropriate wormhole of analogies with modernity.

The Tsar's Bride at the Bolshoi Theatre. Photo by Damir Yusupov/Bolshoi Theater

Here, for example, the end of the second act: Tsar Ivan the Terrible rides a horse - well, let's say he often rode on the great theatrical stages, although it is clear that the public, as soon as the animal appeared on the stage, was no longer up to the fact that someone there at this moment still sings and plays. But here a small “modern” detail is introduced: it is not the oprichnik with a whisk, as in the libretto, that accompanies him, but a good platoon of them with sabers openly sticking out from under the monastic cassocks in which they are dressed for disguise, and other “employees” scout the way for them all ahead. ". The authors of the 19th century could not even dream of such "security measures" for the sovereign, who decided to secretly look at the merchant's daughters.

But the big aria of Dirty - torments alone with oneself? Nothing like that, it’s like he is frank with a servant, flickering around the house, and he, having completed his work, quietly and without any permission leaves. Or girls, who in ancient times were kept “locked up” by Muscovites, frivolously swing on kindergarten swings right in the middle of the street - to the delight of good fellows. The same Dirty is not taken away to be punished for a crime against the sovereign, but quickly stabbed with a knife right on the stage, leaving Marfa a corpse before all her remarks have expired. Hay girls are served on the table, and then harnessed to the "Russian bird-troika", rolling the drunk Malyuta, in necklaces and festive boyar kokoshniks ... Should I continue?

About kokoshniks and costumes, along with bearskins, boyar hats and other things that turn “haberdashery realism” in the style of Sergei Solomko (perhaps, by the way, completely normal for the first productions of the opera a hundred years ago) into a spreading export “cranberry” today - separate conversation. Not only foreigners, but also our fellow citizens are sure that the Russian style is a kokoshnik, pearls, fur coats, as well as caftans and sundresses (the words themselves, by the way, are Turkic). The basis of this performance was laid by world-famous photographs from a costume ball in the Winter Palace in February 1903, in modern terms, a “reenactment party”, in which secular ladies and gentlemen were ordered to dress up in chic in an old fashion, about which they had a very vague idea. Therefore, the officers boldly put on Polish robes on starched shirts, and the ladies coquettishly adjusted precious kokoshniks over cut and curled curls (despite the fact that historically this is a headdress that symbolically covers the hair of a married woman forever after the wedding). That ball was the last of such a scale in Russian history, two years later the first revolution happened and it was not up to it, while even its participants in their memoirs called the costumes not authentically historical, but “opera”. Since then, more than a century has passed, the degree of scientific research into the history of costume and the availability of information in libraries and the Internet has fundamentally changed. Now, in a couple of clicks, it’s easy to find out that a kokoshnik (if there was one in the family at all, since only fairly wealthy people could afford to order it) was worn a few times in a lifetime - after the wedding and on especially important holidays, and that such a form and degree of decoration with precious stones, as now on stage, only married women from the upper boyar class could have kokoshniks. And if such representations are used in the ironic comedy "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession" all right, then in a serious opera production, and even with the declared historicism, it is extremely reckless. For then the question arises, which of the historical truths do we preserve with such "realism"?

There are at least three options: the design of the operas in the style of the author's time (in the current premiere, it is partially reflected in the costumes), Soviet scenography (here, it is implemented in scenery partially preserved and rebuilt for the new world, quite spectacular), or do we use real Russian history? And the viewer, who does not go into details, leaves the performance, by the way, with the full conviction that it was she who was shown to him! Worse, a director can load any mythology, any random or directed associations about the interpretation of our history into a pseudo-historical picture, with much greater ease than in a modernist production, and they will happily be “eaten”, imperceptibly, at the subconscious level. Not only is it easier than to thoroughly think about how people lived then, how they moved, how they behaved, it also gives room for manipulation!

However, let us return nevertheless to the opera, but not all of her, like the royal bride, languish behind a fake gilded cage of stage decisions. The presence of the venerable conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky provided the performance with a sufficient conventional attitude to our great opera, to its musical accents, as well as, as far as possible in the premiere, minimization of orchestral marriage. This, perhaps, is all. Unfortunately, they did not manage to bring the choir to the same degree of readiness - there was a rather unsung, on the verge of undertightening intonation in the tenor and soprano groups and a general dullness, dustiness of the sound.

Marfa - Olga Kulchinskaya. Lykov - Roman Shulakov. Photo by Damir Yusupov/Bolshoi Theater

The vocalists, in general, left a moderately good impression. The laudatory list should begin, definitely, with Marat Gali (Bomelius) - this is a brilliant characteristic tenor, with excellent diction, with a flying and expressive sound. The director's concept saw a real medieval European warlock in the tsar's doctor - so for Galya and acting this is not a problem, it turned out to be a colorful lame old man, devilishly cunning and tenacious.

Our outstanding bass Vladimir Matorin (Sobakin) also took the stage. Of course, he has already crossed the equator of the optimal vocal form in his many years of career, but still retained the conditions for performing Russian operas. Its bass is still sonorous, as if specially created by nature to fill the historic hall of the Bolshoi Theatre. Although the voice was already somewhat defocused, the artist played it right, making his hero not a “noble dad”, but rather also a characteristic Russian character, extremely sincere both in love for the feast and in burning fatherly sadness.

Behind the soprano Olga Kulchinskaya (Martha), with all the questions about the acting part (well, it’s not very good when a modest and not very healthy merchant’s daughter runs sportily around the stage until the last minute and scatters completely modern gestures), one should recognize the vocal success. The composer honored the titular heroine with an extraordinary task, giving her a couple of main themes and two large arias close in material to everything. But Kulchinskaya managed to stay on top of the stage and not turn the opera into "Grigory Dirty" (as happens most often) and not even into "Vasily Sobakin" (although Matorin, to be honest, was very close to pulling the blanket over himself). Her voice is soft, by no means glass-cutting coloratura, but rather lyrical, bright enough for the Bolshoi stage, with good schooling and not at all chatty, fresh and pleasant. And the singer uses it very reasonably, without overload, but expressively, somehow very European. The final scene from this, of course, finally turned into "the madness of Lucia di Lammermoor", quite so active, and not sacrificially passive - the singer's interpretation only emphasized the musical similarity of the two great scenes laid down by the composer.

Alexander Kasyanov (Gryaznoy) gave up the championship without a fight. The role of the restless tsar's guardsman is probably familiar to the singer, long ago learned, and even the excitement of the premiere in the main theater of the country did not spoil this. But we didn’t get any special impression, a true tragedy - he rather conscientiously worked out the game as he could, rather than lived. The same can be said about the work of Irina Udalova (Saburov) and Elena Novak (Dunyasha) - they did everything in a standard way, they didn’t spoil anything, they didn’t give out revelations, but unlike Gryaznoy, this was not required in their small roles.

The most ambiguous result was shown by Agunda Kulaeva (Lyubasha). At the moment of entering the stage, the very first phrase of her made the audience shudder - roundly noble, deep, almost contralto sound, tragic color. But then goosebumps on the back, despite the fact that her musical text is the most fertile and diverse, no longer appeared. The scale of the stage and the hall forced the singer, in pursuit of sonority, to shift the top notes in a purely drum-soprano manner, and the bottoms somehow faded due to excessive ennoblement. Not that it looked bad - on the contrary, she sang better than many. Just knowing the capabilities of this singer, there is a different account for her - I wanted more, and we believe that it will really manifest itself over time. But most importantly, she, along with Kulchinskaya, did not fall into a kind of stylistic trap of this work - the parts of Marfa and Lyubasha were written in a close range with a difference of only one and a half tones, and in sound they should be very contrasting - and they really felt it!

Roman Shulakov's part of Lykov requires more serious preparation - for some reason, the singer saw in her an Italian hero-lover, and not a lyrical-thoughtful "liberal-pro-Western" of the times of Ivan the Terrible. Shulakov tried to sing brightly, expressively, sometimes neglected the consistent performance of the role for the sake of exaggerated vocalization, this interfered with intonation, and there was no need to talk about any freedom and true flight of sound.

Well, frankly, Oleg Tsybulko (Malyut) did not turn out the best work - for a rather young and “Italian-like”, and not Russian bass, it is probably still too early to sing it, and playing it is not close in texture. The tall singer, depicting drunken fun in the costume of Malyuta, seemed extremely tense and squeezed - sort of like a fun-loving master of life, but instead of joy and daring, for some reason, only torment and stiffness in appearance.

As for the forecasts about the future of this performance: we believe that it will almost certainly have many new inputs of Russian soloists ahead, perhaps other conductor forces, it is possible that the rejection of some unnecessary movements of the artists on stage within the framework of the director's concept. But the main thing is that we have such an opera, and it is sung at the Bolshoi.

Photo by Damir Yusupov / Bolshoi Theater

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Opera The Tsar's Bride at the Bolshoi Theater

The opera The Tsar's Bride was written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1898, the libretto was created by the composer himself based on the drama of the same name by Lev Mei, revised by Ilya Tyumenev. The opera premiered in October 1899 at Savva Mamontov's private opera. The performance was a great success, and two years later a high-profile premiere took place on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.

The first production of The Tsar's Bride at the Bolshoi Theater took place in 1916. The scenery for the performance was made by Konstantin Korovin, and the main parts were performed by Antonina Nezhdanova and Nadezhda Obukhova. In the future, the Bolshoi Theater included the opera in its repertoire four more times, and the Tsar's Bride always enjoyed great success with the public. The modern production was staged by director Yulia Pevzner in collaboration with conductor and music director Gennady Rozhdestvensky and set designer Alona Pikalova.

revelry

Upper room in the house of guardsman Grigory Gryaznoy. Grigory is in thought: he passionately fell in love with Martha, the daughter of the merchant Sobakin, but she was betrothed to the young boyar Ivan Lykov. In order to forget himself, Gryaznoy decided to arrange a feast, where he invited the royal doctor Bomelius; Gryaznoy has important business with him. Guests arrive: guardsmen led by Malyuta Skuratov, a friend of Gryaznoy, Ivan Lykov and the long-awaited Yelisey Bomelii. Lykov talks about foreign lands, from where he recently returned. Everyone praises Tsar Ivan the Terrible, they feast and have fun. Malyuta remembers Lyubasha. "Who is this ... Lyubasha?" asks Bomelius. "Dirty's Mistress, Miracle Girl!" Malyuta answers. Gryaznoy calls Lyubasha, who, at the request of Malyuta, sings a song about the bitter fate of a girl forced to marry an unloved one. The guests disperse, Gregory detains Bomelia. Lyubasha, sensing something unkind, overhears their conversation. Gryaznoy asks Bomelius for a love potion - "to bewitch a girl to him." The doctor promises to help.

After Bomelius leaves, Lyubasha bitterly reproaches Grigory for falling out of love with her. But Gryaznoy does not listen to the girl. They call in the morning. Gregory leaves. Lyubasha vows to find the lovebird and turn her away from Gryaznoy.

Act II

Love potion

Street in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. Parishioners leave the monastery after vespers. Martha tells her friend about her fiancé Ivan Lykov. Suddenly, a detachment of guardsmen appears from the gates of the monastery. She does not recognize Tsar Ivan the Terrible at the head of the detachment, but his gaze frightens Martha. Only when she sees her father and fiancé does Martha calm down. Sobakin invites Lykov into the house, the girls follow them. Lyubasha appears at the Sobakins' house. She wants to see her rival and looks into the lighted window. Lyubasha is amazed by Martha's beauty. In desperate determination, she rushes to Bomelius and asks him to sell a potion that could destroy human beauty. Bomelius agrees in exchange for her love. Outraged, Lyubasha wants to leave, but the doctor threatens to tell Gryazny about her request. Martha's laughter coming from the House of the Dogs forces Lyubasha to agree to Bomelia's condition.

Act III

Druzhka

Upper room in the house of the merchant Sobakin. The owner tells Lykov and Gryaznoy that Marfa, along with Dunyasha and other boyar daughters, has been summoned to the palace to the tsar for the bride.

Lykov is alarmed, Gryaznoy is also alarmed. Sobakin tries to calm the groom. Gryaznoy volunteers to be a friend at Lykov's wedding.

Domna Saburova, Dunyasha's mother, enters and talks about the tsar's bridegrooms. The tsar barely glanced at Marfa, but he was very affectionate with Dunyasha. Lykov sighs with relief. Gregory pours two cups - to congratulate the bride and groom, he pours a love potion into Martha's cup. As soon as Martha enters the upper room, Gregory congratulates the betrothed, brings them cups. Martha, according to the old custom, drinks her glass to the bottom. Saburova sings a laudatory song, which is picked up by the bridesmaids.

Malyuta solemnly appears with the boyars and announces the will of the Terrible - Martha is chosen to marry the sovereign and become queen.

Act IV

Bride

Royal tower. Sobakin is saddened by his daughter's illness: a severe unknown illness torments her. Gryaznoy comes with the royal word and reports to Marfa that Lykov allegedly repented of his intention to kill Marfa with a potion and the tsar ordered his execution, which he, Gryaznoy, did with his own hand. Martha falls unconscious to the floor. When she wakes up, she does not recognize anyone: she takes Gryaznoy for Lykov, speaks affectionately to him, recalling the happy days spent with her fiancé. Shocked, Gryaznoy confesses that he slandered Lykov and himself ruined Martha by offering her a love potion. Gryaznoy, in desperation, is ready to accept a "terrible trial", but before that he wants to "scout out" with Bomelius who deceived him. “Scout with me,” Lyubasha, who has appeared, tells him. She says that she replaced the poison with the love potion that was given to Martha. Gregory kills her with a knife.

But Martha doesn't notice. All her thoughts are in the past, with Lykov.

I ended my theatrical spectator season at the Bolshoi Theatre, like a good host leaves the most expensive wine for the end of the feast. I bought tickets for two months on the Internet and was looking forward to this day.

I wanted to go to the opera, and I chose Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride. And of course I wanted to see the Historical Stage after the reconstruction.
An hour before the start of the performance is not enough to see the theater completely - that's why it's big.
The theater has 7 floors up and 3 floors down - a total of 10 floors! 10 floors of elegant classic style with modern amenities and technology.

I was pleased that the designers during the reconstruction were not afraid to sacrifice some outdated structures and supplied the theater with elevators, three buffets and toilets at all levels.

Well, the historical interiors are magnificent.
The central white foyer, two luxurious red halls with sofas, mirrors and vases, marble staircases and entrance areas to the hall have preserved the imperial artistic taste of the 19th century.

Each floor is unique and has its own color scheme.

The main buffet is located on the 7th floor, occupies all its space and is made in accordance with modern design principles. Here you can sit in cozy corners on the sofas, or you can stand at the tables-racks. The prices in the buffet are also high, but as they say: bargaining is not appropriate here.

The auditorium of the Bolshoi Theater is a special world.

Each box has two zones: a room covered with velvet curtains with a sofa and a mirror, and the box itself with seats.

My box number 2 mezzanine "hangs" just above the orchestra pit. I could see all the musicians and the conductor.

Watching them create music is also very interesting. Illuminated only by the illumination of the music stands, the musicians of wind instruments in the pauses of their parts have time to clean their clarinets, oboes and bassoons with a special scarf, pulling it through the pipe. The violinists put their bows to rest on the shelf of the music stand. All the attention of the musicians, even in moments of rest, is riveted to the movements of the conductor, and they are ready to join the musical wave.
On the stage of the theater of the highest rank, the scenery must be convincing to the point of material reality. The opera "The Tsar's Bride" is good for the scope of creativity of stage artists.

This edition of the production is based on the scenery of Fyodor Fedorovsky, whose exhibition is currently taking place at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val, dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the artist. An oak merchant's chamber with a huge tiled stove, with colored windows, the royal red chambers, the whole street of Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, along which a real live horse rode twice - an amazingly tall, beautiful horse of an aristocratic horse breed, alternately appeared on the stage. Ivan the Terrible himself rode a horse, a sinister figure hanging over the fate of the main characters of this sad story. The tsar did his formidable deed: three deaths and one crazy woman - this is the finale of the opera. Simple human happiness cannot break through in this cruel world of violence and slander. Love did not last long on stage either. But in this short time allotted for the libretto, the composer laid down all the passion, joy and despair of love. Anxiety for a subtle feeling and brief moments of sweet hope are invested by Rimsky-Korsakov in music and voices.
Another special pleasure is the costumes of the artists. Women's sundresses, men's caftans made of painted patterned fabrics, kokoshniks in pearls of various shapes and styles.

Against the backdrop of a terrible time, the beauty of the Russian costume delights and amazes with its wonderful artistic taste. For foreign viewers, the opera "The Tsar's Bride" is an opportunity to see the very essence of Russian culture in its most vivid manifestation. But there were also serious moments for perception. It is interesting how numerous foreign viewers perceive the scene of revelry of the guardsmen in the settlement.
This scene also struck me with its historical cruelty, when a detachment of guardsmen in black cloaks with hoods tormented a husband in front of his wife and hung the corpse of a huge wolf on a swing. Terror with a gun!
But then the golden curtain closed.

Spectators are still given the opportunity to slowly disperse, take pictures for memory.

At the exit from the theater you are greeted by a warm Moscow evening.

The fountain on Theater Square is strewn with people. Beautiful calm Moscow.

It is good that there is great music, great theater, wonderful opera artists. May it live forever. Just let there be no plots for tragic works in our lives. Let beauty save the world.