Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga (1898) and The Maid of Pskov (1872)

Well, since I was on an NRK kick, I figured it would make sense for me to see this too, which has been available for some time but which I had for whatever reason put off.  Actually, it's been available for longer than that, but never with subtitles.  A version of The Maid of Pskov first appeared with subs on the vanished M T's channel.  BUT THEN!  Grange Park Opera put a version up--I think as some sort of comment on the war--with significantly less insane subtitling (it's delisted now, but they didn't take it down or make it private, so you can still check it out).  Both of these are based on a play by Lev Mei.  Vera Shebolga is a belated prequel based on the prologue, which I guess is a rewritten version of a prologue to Pskov, which he removed in revisions of the opera.  Confusing.

So: in The Noblewoman Vera Shebolga, Vera's living alone with her sister Nadezhda, her husband being off at The Wars.  She's had a child, and she confesses to her sister that it's not her husband's; she was seduced by a mysterious man.  When her husband come back, Nadezhda covers for her by claiming that it's actually her baby.

In The Maid of Pskov, we fast-forward some number of years, and the baby from the prologue, Olga, has grown up.  Things are difficult, with Ivan the Terrible running around terrorizing cities (Ivan the Terrible is in fact an alternate title of the opera).  She's in love with Tucha, a leader of the resistance against Ivan's guys, but her dad wants her to marry this creepy dude Matuta instead.  When the tsar shows up, both he and Olga act surprised, and we learn that--surprise!--he's her real father.  He decides to be merciful to the city because of this (not a good basis for governance, but hey, he WAS terrible).  Olga is captured during an assignation with Tucha; Ivan still wants to be merciful, and amazingly even agrees that Tucha will just be imprisoned rather than executed, but the rebels come in and accidentally kill Olga, and then he's sad.  The end.

The music's really good.  What a surprise!  It's NRK we're talking about here!  It might not seem that this would be a good story to include a bunch of folk music, but he works in lots of off-stage choruses that do just that.  The plot is a little anemic, but what the hey.  The Maid of Pskov was his first opera; if I were a musicologist, perhaps I could analyze his development of his style by comparing it to The Noblewoman Vera Sheboga.  Alas, I am not and cannot.  But speaking of Vera Sheboga, I cannot fathom the purpose of its existence.  It doesn't broaden our understanding of the main drama, and performed alone, it would be absolutely useless.  It's usually combined with the longer opera, but either way: guh?  I mean, I'm not going to complain about having the chance to listen to more Rimsky-Korsakov, but I'm also at a bit of a loss.

This production is interesting.  It's mostly a traditional affair, but it deviates from that in a few places.  We don't see Ivan until midway through the second act, and you can't help but think, boy, with all this build-up, he'd better be hella memorable.  And here he actually is: when you first see him, he's standing in the shadows and wearing a large cloak; when he throws if off and comes forward, you can see that he's done up as Stalin, in a period Soviet uniform.  I was NOT expecting that, but it works.  

So as you may know, one of the many things that made Ivan so terrible was that he killed his firstborn son in a fit of rage (but afterward he apparently felt super bad about it, and hey, who among us...?).  At the beginning of the third act, we see him contemplating a silent film of this event, to show that these things are on his mind because of his newly-discovered daughter.  The actual depiction of the character by the libretto isn't much, so this helps--though regardless, how much are we meant to think we cares about this daughter he JUST learned exists?  

I dunno; notwithstanding the sometimes-shaky words, I enjoyed this!  No question!  Now I've seen all of NRK's operas but Servillia and Pan Voyevoda, and these two are REALLY rarely performed, so who knows when or if I'll ever get the chance.  Still, I'll keep an eye out!

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Christmas Eve (1895)

This year, Operavision and Oper Frankfurt bring us the greatest gift of all: rarely-performed seasonal NRK!  How can you say no?  'Tis impossible.

This has the same plot as Tchaikovsky's Cherevichki, as both are based on the same Gogol story.  So: Vakula, the blacksmith, is hopelessly in love with Oksana, but she keeps rebuffing him, and says she'll only marry him if he can bring her the tsarina's slippers.  So Vakula catches the Devil—who had come to the village because he was annoyed that Vakula had made an unflattering caricature of him—and makes him take him to Saint Petersburg, where the tsarina kindly gives him the desired slippers.  Then, it's back home, and Vakula and Oksana are going to be married.

There are very small differences from the Tchaikovsky: this one features Patsyuk, a sorcerer, adding to the supernatural elements.  Also, Vakula's mother, Solokha, comes across as more mercenary—she wants to marry Oksana's father, and doesn't want the kids to get married because then she wouldn't get his fortune.  There's a scene (here and in the other) where the Devil and three men come in turn to her house to try to seduce her and then are hidden in sacks when the other ones show up; it's very amusing, but in this one, there's a scene after where they all decide that they were being played and reject her.  It could well come across as misogynistic (and it's one thing I definitely like less), but in this production, at least, we see her again in the last scene and all seems to have been forgiven, so that's all right.  Finally, I believe this one makes it clearer that Oksana was just teasing Vakula; that she was going to accept him eventually anyway, and the slippers were unnecessary.  So that's a small improvement, I think.

So hey, swings and roundabouts.  But they're both fantastic operas by fantastic composers.  I saw a video introduction to the Operavision production which said that Rimsky-Korsakov waited until after Tchaikovsky's death to do his own opera on the theme, so as not to step on the other man's toes.  Which seems a bit morbid, and there was certainly no guarantee that Tchaikovsky would go first, given that he was only four years older than NRK.  But there you go!  Doesn't seem like a worthwhile tradeoff, but it IS a great piece of work.

The Operavision production is by Christof Loy, who I'm still slightly wary about, but he does good work here, though obviously less lavish than the Royal Opera House Cherevichki.  It makes extensive use of geometric grids, which seems characteristic of his work.  Seems odd, but I feel it mostly captures the spirit of the piece.  I was also psyched to see that the Devil is played by Andrei Popov, my low-key fave.  And with this performance, my record of only seeing him as unnamed character remains unbroken: the Devil, the Astrologer, the Holy Fool, the Police Inspector, the Left-Hander.  Zany stuff, man.  Zany stuff.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Tsar's Bride (1899)

So I just saw this at the National Opera (on my second try—I was originally supposed to see it like a month ago, but I came down with covid), and I thought, you know, I know I already wrote about this the first time I saw it, but I kind of have more I want to say about it, so let's just do another entry here.  And then I looked and realized, hey, I actually didn't write about it the first time!  So, perfect.

So there's this oprichnik named Grigory who's in love with a woman named Marfa.  But alas, she has a fiancé, Ivan, so he gets this creepy apothecary to make him a love potion he can give her.  But his mistress Lyubasha (in whom he's lost interest) overhears him and, jealous, prevails upon the same apothecary, in exchange for an assignation, to make her a potion that will wither Marfa's beauty (all of this is very vaguely based on real events).  Marfa and Ivan are all ready to get married, but then—as you might guess—the Tsar (Ivan the Terrible, who never appears on-stage) decides that he's going to marry her, so what can you do?  Well, things go from bad to worst, and all the principals end up dead.

The main issue with this opera, I feel, is that the tragedy feels overdetermined: you could make a perfectly sturdy drama with the potion stuff, or with Marfa being forced to marry the Tsar, but when you put them both together, the result is something of a jumble, and neither receive quite the attention I think they deserve.  Another problem (if you think it's a problem) is that this—like Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina--feels oddly centerless.  Who's the main character here?  You would think it would be Marfa, but she really feels more like object than subject here.  The largest role is Grigory, but he still doesn't exactly feel like the protagonist.  I don't know; I'm not wholly convinced by the libretto.

Nevertheless, there's always something satisfying about a really grim opera, and this certainly delivers in that regard, and with Rimsky-Korsakov's kickass music, you can't go wrong (seriously, you should at least listen to the awesome overture).  The cast was really good: Rauno Elp, a very prolific artist whom I recently saw as Jack Rance in La fanciulla del west, was a memorable, conflicted Grigory, but I think the MVP was the mezzo singing Lyubasha, whose name I can't provide because I didn't recognize her and the website doesn't list the cast.  Sorry about that; it's really not fair.  But whoever she is, she smashed a few really mesmerizing arias (she's a brunette while Marfa is a blonde—of course!).

So I'm pretty sure that the company's decision to produce this was as a commentary on current events, although Ivan the Terrible's brand of tyranny seems pretty distinct from Putin's.  Nevertheless, this is the first opera I've seen here with any sort of unconventional production: it seems at first to be set in the 1940s, judging by the costuming.  Film reels of Stalinist propaganda are projected on the back of the stage.  And yet, characters also appear dressed in more conventional, Boris-Godunov-esque dress, so I dunno.  The projection is also used for other things: to indicate seasons or—again--for big images of Stalin.  There's one memorable moment when—after Grigory relates how he killed Ivan—there's a sudden huge spatter of blood up there.  In general, though, I found the production a bit overstuffed, not that it really interfered with my enjoyment.