IOLANTA / BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE
STAGE DIRECTOR & DESIGNER: Mariusz Trelinski
CONDUCTOR: Valery Gergiev
CAST: Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, Aleksei Markov, Alexei Tanovitski, Elchin Azizov (Iolanta); Nadja Michael, Mikhail Petrenko (Bluebeard)
RUNNING TIME: 225 minutes, including one intermission
RATING: ****
Even to the most avid opera fanatic titles like Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle might hardly be known. Their composers, Tchaikovsky and Bartók respectively, did not sweep the operatic world off its feet with these offerings.
Tchaikovsky’s one-act Iolanta (1891) does not fully pack a dramatic punch on par with Eugene Onegin or The Queen of Spades, but it remains a beautiful and effecting operatic swan song. It is based on King René’s Daughter, a dramatic poem by the Danish writer Henrik Hertz with some fairy tale elements. Iolanta, the daughter, is blind, but not fully aware of her handicap. She only realises her situation when Count Vaudémont falls in love with her and starts telling her about vision and light – aspects of life which were beyond her comprehension.
Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, based on the Bluebeard legend, was completed 20 years after Iolanta. It has only three principal characters: Bluebeard, Judith and the castle. A central element is blood, Bluebeard’s blood, becoming a symbol of his suffering. It is a symbolistic work of art, a play of “decaying words”, but also of “undying meaning” to which the Bard refers in the spoken prologue to the opera. It is a mystery play and an epic of the theatre of ideas in one.
The Metropolitan Opera shines with the presentation of this double bill, which includes the première of the Tchaikovsky in the house. Although the operas are stylistically worlds apart, they are bound together by the Polish film director Mariusz Trelinski, who of late started to focus on opera direction using filmic techniques to create a challenging, but aesthetically refined visual unity.
Iolanta is brilliantly cast. Anna Netrebko, dashingly authentic in the title role, leads the pack. Not only have her performances of late reached vocally new heights of dramatic expression, but also her acting has become extremely refined in detail – like here playing a blind person with complete plausibility.
Iolanta’s two suitors, Piotr Beczala in the role of Vaudémont and Alexei Markov as Robert, the duke of Burgundy, demonstrate and extend the richness of their voices with partly robust and partly sensitive characterisation. The remaining six minor roles are also cast with rare insight. Nadja Michael as Judith and Mikhail Petrenko as Bluebird are like haunted creatures in the Bartók. Their vocal expressions mirror convincingly the wide spectrum of their tormented souls.
Binding the productions on a musical level and scale that is constantly enlightening and full of atmosphere, is Valery Gergiev’s conducting. He is deeply in touch with the Russian soul, but in Bluebeard it is the continuous melody and the most subtle of orchestral colouring which haunts the sub-conscience.
• Cinema Nouveaus until April 2.