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Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex and The Nightingale: Soloists, Orchestra and Chorus of the  Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg, Conductor: Valery Gergiev, Teatro Real de Madrid 20 & 21.1.2009 (JMI)

Concert Versions

Casts:

Oedipus Rex

Oedipus: Alexandr Timchenko
Jocasta: Zlata Bulycheva/Olga Savova
Creonte: Evgeny Nikitin
Tiresias: Alexei Tanovitski
Messager: Evgeny Nikitin
Shepherd: Andrei Popov
Narrator: Alexei Emelyanov

The Nightingale

The Nightingale: Olga Trifonova
Emperor: Evgeny Nikitin
Cook: Marina Shaguch
Chamberlain: Alexei Tanovitski
Fisherman: Alexandr Timchenko
The Death: Olga Savova/Zlata Bulycheva
Bonzo: Eduard Tsanga


Once again the Mariinsky Theatre from Saint Petersburg visits Madrid’s Teatro Real. The company is touring through different Spanish cities, starting in Valencia’s  Palau de la Musica with a symphonic concert, followed by the concert version of The Legend of the  Invisible City of Kitezh. In this  visit to Madrid the Mariinsky theatre presented a Stravinsky program which complements the performances of The Rake’s Progress. The double bill of Oedipus Rex and The Nightingale however, seems to me to prove that Stravinsky was not at his best in opera and that he was much better in other fields, particularly ballet.

One of the things that surprised me about this concert was the order in which the operas were performed. From my point of view the Oedipus is a work of much greater drama and it seems to me it is more appropriate to close a concert with it than to open it.

Oedipus Rex is based on the work by Sophocles and narrates the second part of the tragedy of Oedipus, once he has freed Thebes  from the Sphinx, has become king and has married Jocasta. I still have  fresh in my memory the performance of Enescu’s  Oedipus from last October and it seems to me that the work of the Rumanian composer is superior to Stravinsky’s.

The second part of the concert was The Nightingale, a lyric story based on  Hans Christian Andersen. This is a pleasant and amusing work, where Stravinsky demonstrates his orchestral knowledge, but it is not an opera to raise a lot of enthusiasm.

Valery Gergiev is clearly one of the most important conductors of the present day, with a special  magnetism which is sometimes curiously independent of the actual outcome of his work. On this occasion, things did not reach the expected quality, in the sense that the enthusiasm was not communicated to the audience until nearly at the end of the concert. His reading was very good of course, but somehow not what we are used to from him. Once the concert was over, he decided to offer his best in the form of encores. On  the first day he offered the Fire Bird Suite, in which he was the Gergiev we had expected and had the audience at his feet. The second day he repeated the same encore plus a new one, a short page from Anatole Lyadov’s The Witch, and that concert ended in triumph too.

The casts were not outstanding in general.  Oedipus was the tenor Aleksandr Timchenko, who was not adequate for the character. His voice is too light for the role, the tone was forced more than once and his tenor is not terribly beautiful. He was better suited as the Fisherman in The Nightingale.

Jocasta was mezzo Zlata Bulycheva. She completed her task well enough although her voice is not particularly rich. Olga Savova showed a richer voice the following day. Only her high notes were not too bright. Evgeny Nikitin doubled as Creonte and Messager in Oedipus. He is one of the most important dramatic baritones (or even bass baritone) of those now singing, to mu mind, although his projection was at times insecure. He also played the Emperor of China in the second opera. The bass Alexei Tanovitski brought again his beautiful and powerful voice to Tiresias, doubling as the Chamberlain in The Nightingale.

Playing the Nightingale herself, we had the light soprano Olga Trifonova, who gave a very good performance in a very demanding part, especially in coloratura and stratospheric notes. The Cook was interpreted by  soprano Marina Shaguch, whose ample voice was not particularly attractive. Olga Savova was good as Death, replaced the second day by Zlata Bulycheva. The public’s applause went mainly to Trifonova and Gergiev

On the first day King Juan Carlos was present. This was a little unusual, as he does not have a reputation for being particularly fond of opera and  I don’t know what his feelings could have been at the end of a concert of what was possibly unfamiliar music, with story lines starting with a King who kills his father and marries his mother, ending in the suicide of the Queen and the King putting out his own eyes, and then continued with the Chinese Emperor falling in love with a bird. A less than tactful choice of repertoire perhaps!

José M Irurzun

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