Vladimir Deshevov, Ice and Steel (1930)

There is very little information on Deshevov on the English-language internet. Seriously, do a search. Almost everything you'll find is related to this production of this opera. There's a short biography in the DVD, but it's nothing that notable: a left-wing intellectual musician, 1889-1955, this his only opera. The Soviet authorities were extremely down on Shostakovich's operas, and even Prokofiev was viewed with some suspicion, so what did they like? This guy, apparently. Only not so much after all, because, again according to the DVD booklet, while successful at first, this one quickly disappeared from the stage as well, even though it's a blatant propaganda piece. SHEESH. There's no pleasing some people.

Well, this is sort of a collective piece; there are people with names, but only one who has any chance of sticking in your mind--and it's not like she's sharply detailed either. It's more a sort of collage. You have people arguing about ideology and being pure or not pure and everything, but then everyone united because there's trouble brewing: the Kronstadt Rebellion, which was problematic because the people involved in it were themselves communists and other assorted leftists. Hard to frame this in a Politically Correct (in the original sense) way. Well, but here, they're definitely BAD. And this heroic woman, Musja, infiltrates the rebels; she's caught and tortured, but then she blows the place up with a grenade, as pictured on that cover. And then the Soviets hear about it and are all, YEAH! There's a whole bunch of Musjas among us! Up the proletariat!

Right, so I wouldn't say this is a particularly good opera (though it IS only a svelte hour and a half, which is a point in its favor).  The protagonist-less presentation is sort of theoretically interesting in an avant-garde way, but not really in practice, and it's fairly musically uninteresting--very subdued stuff for the most part that will not give Shostakovich or my man NRK a run for their money. The moment where Musja blows up the rebels is pretty cool--you can see it on the cover there; she stands there in that triumphant pose with an explosion in the background--but because art in propaganda can only be incidental, it doesn't actually end there; instead we get the epilogue, which reeeeaally spells out the message.

And then there's the way the producers handled it: you see, these days we may not be so euphorically giddy about communism triumphant. So it works thusly: after the final chorus where all the people are standing around defiantly, we see them fall over one by one until they're all dead, and then some guys use ropes to pull down Musja (who is clearly represented as a statue now, you see). And, I mean, really now. If this piece has any value, it's as a historical artifact. What is gained by reading it against itself like that? And if you insist on doing that (which I don't think you should, but clearly you don't care what I think), the production doesn't even have the courage of its convictions: Musja's sacrifice is clearly set up to look cool and badass, which it does. So what are you even saying if you decide, oh, that thing that we set up as a triumphant moment? It actually sucks, and we should be glad it's gone.  I ask you!

I would say we need a better production of this, but eh. We probably don't. As a bit of ephemera, it may hold some limited interest, but I can't say I'm really up for revisiting it.