Mykola Lysenko, Taras Bulba (1924)

Time to drop over to Ukraine for an opera based on Gogol's novel.  This was written in the 1880s, but not performed in his lifetime because he refused to let it be translated into Russian (or any other language).  Way to stick to your guns, I guess.  Supposedly, Lysenko played the score for Tchaikovsky, who enthusiastically approved.  And how unfair is it that when you say "Lysenko," everyone just thinks of the pseudoscientist?  Make Lysenkoism Great Again!  By having it refer to the composer.  You know.

So it's the seventeenth century, and Poland is trying to extend its territory to this particular area of Ukraine.  But are the Ukrainians having with that?  They are not!  Taras and his sons, Ostap and Andriy, go to take the city of Dubno back from the Poles.  But it happens that Andriy and Maryltsya, daughter of the Polish governor, are in love.  Andriy is prevailed upon to help the beleaguered Poles, providing them with supplies.   Maryltsya's father agrees to let them get married and make Andriy an officer in the Polish army.  When Taras learns of this, he murders his son for being a traitor, and he and Ostap (and others, one presumes) successfully take back the city.  In the novel they're captured and executed, but that does not happen here.

Well, that's how wikipedia describes it, but this production certainly seems to depart from that, which I feel is cheating.  I'm sort of lost, really: it certainly doesn't appear that Andriy is killed, Ostap certainly doesn't sing a lament for him, and we don't see them taking the city.  Instead, we just have Taras standing there on the side of the stage singing about something or other and then standing there silently and then it's over.  It's a little baffling. Sure, I was at a disadvantage not being able to understand it, but it's hard to imagine the context in which this would be a good way for any opera to end.

Now granted, this may in part be the production, and in part the lack of subtitles or libretto, but I have to say: based on what I saw, I don't think this is an overly distinguished piece of work.  Musically, there was just very little that stood out.  There doesn't seem to be much drama, and there were a few efforts at ballets that seemed to be over almost before they began.  I would revisit it if conditions were better, but as it stands, eh.  Ya gotta do better, Ukraine!