Bolshoi makes aliya

Having survived a tumultuous history, the world-famous Bolshoi Opera can now add the Jewish state to its list of countries in which it has performed.

By BARRY DAVIS
The Bolshoi Opera Company521 (photo credit: Courtesy Yossi Tzveker and Damir Yusupov)
The Bolshoi Opera Company521
(photo credit: Courtesy Yossi Tzveker and Damir Yusupov)
It’s not every day we get a visit by such a venerable troupe, and an historic one to boot. The Bolshoi Opera, together with its feted orchestra and choir, are currently in town for a series of performances of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin opera which started this week and ends on Wednesday. It is the company’s very first foray into this part of the world.
Besides the Bolshoi and the composer sharing the same nationality, the institution’s early generation of staff members was witness to the times in which Alexander Pushkin wrote the eponymous novel in verse on which the opera is based. The book was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832, and the first complete edition was released in 1833.
Eugene Onegin is generally thought to be Tchaikovsky’s greatest opera and one of the best of all Russian operas. Tchaikovsky finished composing it in 1878 and it was first performed in Moscow in 1879.
The Bolshoi Theater began life as the private cultural institution of Moscow prosecutor Prince Pyotr Urusov. In March 28 1776, Empress Catherine II granted the prince the privilege of organizing theater performances, balls and other forms of entertainment for a period of 10 years. That led to the founding of the Bolshoi Theater.
In 1825, the year in which the first excerpts of Pushkin’s novel saw the light of day, the theater moved into its current generously proportioned premises in Moscow.
ALMOST TWO centuries later the troupe has finally made it over here, and with a sizable contingent. Bolshoi chief conductor and musical director Vasili Sinaiski will share podium duties with guest conductor Alan Buribaev, along with 17 soloists – including acclaimed soprano Tatiana Monogarova, Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen and mezzo-soprano Margarita Mamsirova. The man with his capable hands on the tiller of the whole production is director and set designer Dmitry Tcherniakov.
According to Moscow-born musicologist and violinist Victor Licht, who has lived in Beit Shemesh since he made aliyah in 1997, Tcherniakov brings weighty added creative value to the production here.
“He is an avant garde director and he often does things in an interesting and provocative way,” says Licht. “He takes classic opera and presents it like modern opera.”
It is no mean feat to keep a cultural institution going for so long, especially if we take into account that there have been plenty of political shenanigans, of various degrees of violence and scale, in the Bolshoi’s neck of the woods. The company had to survive the whims of various czars, and their consorts, not to mention the Communist revolution of 1917, and later the collapse of the Soviet Union and re-emergence of Russia. The latter alone could have brought the theater and opera to its knees.
During the Soviet era, people often had to line up in snow-covered streets for hours to get their chapped hands on a (relatively) fresh loaf of bread, but culture and the arts were shored up to the hilt by whatever regime happened to be in power at the time. Stalin, for example, was known to be a great fan of the Bolshoi.
“The Bolshoi has had some great directors and great artists over the years,” continues Licht. “During the Soviet era it was the number one theater. It always got great reviews in the press and everybody admired it.”
The musicologist adds that the company’s cause was helped by the size of the hinterland that fueled it.
“Don’t forget, the Soviet Union was an enormous empire and the Bolshoi took artists, instrumentalists and singers from all over the republic.”
THEN AGAIN, there were also severe constraints on the Bolshoi’s freedom of movement which, Licht feels, had a detrimental effect of the quality of the company’s output.
“They weren’t allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union. There were some really great artists in the Bolshoi, but people around the world didn’t know them.
That was a great shame. They had some wonderful bass singers, like [Maxim] Mikhailov and [Mark] Raizen.”
Mikhailov was a natural phenomenon who had no formal musical training, and was said to be Stalin’s favorite singer.
The insular approach of the authorities, and the foreign travel ban they placed on the Bolshoi, says Licht, did not do the company any favors.
“There were great musicians and artists in the Bolshoi, but if you don’t go out into the world you don’t have air, you get strangled. You need to feed off new ideas and energies.”
When the Bolshoi started out it played second fiddle (pardon the pun) to its counterpart, the Mariisnky Theater in St.
Petersburg.
“The capital during the time of the czars was St. Petersburg, and Moscow became the capital after the October Revolution [in 1917],” Licht explains.
The change in the political climate was a boon to the Moscow-based institution.
“Then Bolshoi became number one and Mariisnky was considered out of favor with the authorities,” says Licht. Then again, Licht notes, all was not roses for the Bolshoi in the early days of the USSR.
“There were some who said that the Bolshoi did not perform art for the proletariat, [that] it is art for the bourgeoisie. There was a real danger to the company’s future.”
But, it seems, the Bolshoi also had its supporters in high circles.
“There was someone in the Soviet government called Anatoly Lunacharsky, who understood the cultural importance of the Bolshoi, and he believed that it should not be abolished.”
After the October Revolution , Lunacharsky was appointed Commissar of Enlightenment in the first Soviet government and, as such, he was in charge of education. He was associated with the establishment of the Bolshoi Drama Theater in 1919, and worked with the likes of writer Maxim Gorky, poet Alexander Blok and actress and Bolshevik administrator Maria Andreeva.
DESPITE STALIN’S enthusiastic support for the Bolshoi, there were some hiccups along the way. One of those occurred in 1936 when the dictator went to the theater to see the acclaimed avant garde production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mesensk District.
“It was a scandal,” says Licht. “Stalin hated the show and [official Soviet government newspaper] Pravda ran a terrible review of the show.”
At the time, the composer was just 29 years old, and Lady Macbeth had already been performed around 200 times around the Soviet Union, and had been performed to wildly enthusiastic audiences in London, New York, Prague and Copenhagen.
None of that interested Stalin and, after the panning in the newspaper, the production was summarily closed down.
In fact it took another 26 years until Lady Macbeth of Mesensk got another airing in the USSR.
So, presumably, after the Soviet regime collapsed in 1991, things looked up for the Bolshoi, and the company had complete artistic freedom.
“There are two sides to that,” observes Licht. “During the Soviet era the Bolshoi had the best financial support of any theater in the whole of the Soviet Union, but all that ended when the union felt to pieces. But that’s the price of freedom.”
That free-hand ethos is still the order of the day.
“The Bolshoi does a lot of modern, avant garde productions now,” notes Licht, adding that much of that is down to the artistic avenue followed by Tcherniakov.
However, according to the musicologist, different and daring do not always go hand in hand with quality.
“Not everything Tcherniakov does, to my mind, is good, but it is always very interesting. He does things in a provocative way, and you always get surprises, you never know what you’re going to get.”
While Licht says he appreciates artistic exploration, he does not believe in the throwing out the baby with the bath water approach.
“Yes, there are very interesting things in avant garde, but you have to be aware of what is happening in the music. I am not sure that modern opera directors always create productions that reference the music. But Tcherniakov has his own concept and he is very clear about his way.”
Despite having his personal misgivings about Tcherniakov’s way, Licht says the Bolshoi’s appearance here is an event to be savored.
“I saw the Bolshoi many times in Moscow,” Licht recalls, “and it was always interesting. I think the Israeli public will find the production very interesting. There are new young members in the Bolshoi cast, and it is a great opportunity for Israelis to hear what they can do.”
Meanwhile, at a press conference held at the Israel Opera shortly after the Bolshoi arrived here, Sinaiski noted that the current show has certainly paid its dues.
“This is not a new production, but it is very famous,” he said. “The Bolshoi has already performed it all over the world, and it was a great success in every country. We have an excellent team of young soloists.”
Bolshoi assistant general manager Anton Getman was similarly enthused about the opera’s Tel Aviv run, and said it had been a long time coming.
“I want to thank [Israel Opera general manager] Hanna [Munitz] for inviting us,” he said. “This invitation dates back three years. I think the audiences here will enjoy Eugene Onegin, which is my favorite opera.”
For tickets and more information: (03) 692-7777 and www.israel-opera.co.il