No orchestra, no costumes, no point
KEN WINTERS
From Tuesday's Globe and
Mail
April 8, 2008 at 3:49 AM
EDT
Rimsky-Korsakov:
The Snow Maiden
Opera in Concert
At Jane Mallett Theatre in
Toronto on Sunday
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's
The Snow Maiden is a great rarity these days, outside Russia. Opera in
Concert's performance of it Sunday, without the benefits of sumptuous
orchestration, lavish fairy-tale costumes and magical production values, such
as the Metropolitan Opera might afford, told us why.
Some of the arias are
tuneful and some of the small ensembles and choruses are worth performing
alone, but the cogent musical connective tissue that is the lifeblood of
Russian opera, from Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky to (Rimsky's pupils) Prokofiev
and Stravinsky, just isn't there.
At least, it's not there in
the piano reduction (or practice score, our orchestra Sunday), which is
unlovely and just barely coherent except during some of the arias. In those,
music director and pianist Raisa Nakhmanovich was sometimes quite eloquently
able to assist and enhance the singers in their lyrical functions.
The singers had good, clear
voices and used them with passion and commitment. Mezzo-soprano Louisa Cowie
was a particular standout in the trouser role of Lel, a shepherd and a kind of
Russian folk Orpheus. The two sopranos - Luiza Zhuleva as Snegurochka, the snow
maiden, and Katerina Tchoubar as Kupava, the wealthy villager's daughter - were
also excellent, as was Anna Belikova, a member of the chorus who sang the small
role of a peasant's wife. Soprano Ani Imastounian as Spring and baritone Gerrit
Theule as Grandfather Frost, the snow maiden's parents, were nicely cast. High
tenor Paul Williamson, as the czar, had some ecstatic moments; his springtime
aria was a high point. Baritone Michael Meraw, as Mizgir, the luckless young
merchant who falls hopelessly in love with the snow maiden (with the coming of
summer, she melts) was best when he did not over-sing; the voice is good. The
chorus, trained and directed by Robert Cooper, contributed greatly to the
whole.
So it was not the
performance but the work itself that disappointed.