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.
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