by Piotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky from a story by Pushkin
seen by live streaming from Covent Garden on 22 January 2019
Stefan Herheim directs and Antonio Pappano conducts a new production of Tchaikovsky's 1893 opera based on a story about gambling by Alexander Pushkin, with Sergey Polyakov as Gherman, Vladimir Stoyanov as Prince Yeletsky, Felicity Palmer as the Countess and Eva-Maria Westbroek as Liza. The production is designed by Philipp Fürhoffer.
The original story, which concerns the greed of the soldier Herman who is determined to wrest the secret of winning at cards from an old Countess, is here complicated by adding details of a love story in which two characters, Gherman (the Herman figure) and Prince Yelestsky (newly introduced in the opera version) both love Liza, the young companion of the Countess in the story, promoted to being her granddaughter in the opera.
The story is set in the late eighteenth century - there is a scene in which Catherine the Great is welcomed - but in this production Tchaikovsky himself is on stage (played wordlessly by Vladimir Stoyanov) at the beginning, apparently composing the opera under great persona stress; the characters are as if conjured out of his mind and at times responding directly to him, or wresting control from him. The nightmarish nature of Gheman's obsession, and of the Countess's ghastly allure, is matched by the feverish imaginings of the composer, whereby all the male chorus, when it appears, also looks like Tchaikovsky.
This is largely a distraction from the innate power of the opera. The singing is impressive (particularly as Sergey Polyakov was standing in at short notice for Aleksandrs Antonenko) and the orchestral playing rich and satisfying; but what we saw on stage was often distracting and even gratuitous. Soliloquies had to be re-imagined as direct addresses of reproof or anguish to the composer, who in turn was of course unable to reply except by busily writing musical notation, hamming it up at a grand piano which doubled up as a coffin for the Countess, or waving his arms about conductor-like in an attempt to remain in charge. This was irritating, and sapped the strength of operatic soliloquy, which should reveal an inner state of ind to the audience unmediated by any interaction with someone on stage.
All too frequently, the story in the libretto was being pulled out of shape by the director's desire to address the inner conflicts Tchaikovsky himself might be presumed to have suffered over his problematic sexuality. While this is an interesting, and in some places still controversial, subject, it is not the subject of The Queen of Spades, and it is a shame that too much was going on for a clear appreciation of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece.
This is largely a distraction from the innate power of the opera. The singing is impressive (particularly as Sergey Polyakov was standing in at short notice for Aleksandrs Antonenko) and the orchestral playing rich and satisfying; but what we saw on stage was often distracting and even gratuitous. Soliloquies had to be re-imagined as direct addresses of reproof or anguish to the composer, who in turn was of course unable to reply except by busily writing musical notation, hamming it up at a grand piano which doubled up as a coffin for the Countess, or waving his arms about conductor-like in an attempt to remain in charge. This was irritating, and sapped the strength of operatic soliloquy, which should reveal an inner state of ind to the audience unmediated by any interaction with someone on stage.
All too frequently, the story in the libretto was being pulled out of shape by the director's desire to address the inner conflicts Tchaikovsky himself might be presumed to have suffered over his problematic sexuality. While this is an interesting, and in some places still controversial, subject, it is not the subject of The Queen of Spades, and it is a shame that too much was going on for a clear appreciation of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece.
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