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!
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