Rodion Shchedrin, Dead Souls (1976)

If I'm not mistaken, this is my first opera by a living Russian composer (Shchedrin is eighty-seven as of this writing). So...that's a fact. I'm not saying it's a fascinating fact, but at least it's not a horrendous lie.

Allow me to confess: I have not read Gogol's novel. What can I say? I no doubt should, but so far it hasn't happened, which might actually be a bit of an issue for understanding the action here, which is not always super-clear. It's about a man named Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov who is wandering around the countryside trying to get people to sell him "dead souls;" I am given to understand that "souls" refers to peasants (though that's definitely not in the libretto). What exactly he wants with them, or what indeed it MEANS to own one of these, is not at all clear. Regardless, he visits a few different people, and at first he's super-popular for some reason, but then rumors start spreading and everyone hates him. And then he's dead? No? Probably not. But again, it's not really clear, and that's why I should probably read the book.

I mean, that's not to say that it's too terrible of an opera. It actually has some pretty funny stuff, particularly when Chichikov is trying to get souls from this seamstress who's very pragmatic about the whole thing. Also, this one where he's talking to, I don't know, some kind of...professor? And the busts in the background--they really do look like inanimate busts--burst into song from time to time. Nice. It does, I must say, include a lot of babbling about god knows what, which it is my impression is characteristic of Russian literature in general. Geez, talk about painting with a broad brush.

The music...well, this is definitely one of these operas where it seems really firmly in service to the action and not something you would likely listen to by itself. Though there is some interesting, Arab-sounding chanting of abstruse poetry. That was cool. Good production, anyway, as expected from the Mariinsky Theatre. You could to worse, and it's interesting to see a contemporary(-ish) Russian opera. You could watch it on amazon if you wanted, but why bother when--at least in the US--it's freely available via EuroArtsChannel?