Fearlessly beautiful: Kung fu and the Olympics were shown on the Bolshoi stage.
One hundred years after the world premiere in 1926, Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot appeared on the poster of the Bolshoi Theater. The last masterpiece of the Italian composer returned to the repertoire in the production of Alexei Frandetti. The musical director of the premiere is Valery Gergiev. The story of the cruel Chinese princess was told using modern technology, visual effects, two choirs and stellar soloists. Izvestia visited the performance.
An anniversary gift
Tickets for the show were sold at the price of ballet hits: a seat in the stalls cost up to 45 thousand rubles. But the theatergoers quickly dismantled them. Of course, one of the most beautiful operas by the Italian composer returns to the poster, directed by Valery Gergiev, and staged by Alexei Frandetti, the owner of the Golden Masks.
Director General of the Bolshoi Theatre, conductor Valery Gergiev at a briefing before the premiere performance of Turandot
— There are seven compositions in our production. It also involves very promising young artists. Young people have made an incredible step up," said Valery Gergiev.
As the maestro says, "Turandot" should not be absent from the Bolshoi's repertoire in principle. And in the year of the 250th anniversary of the theater, even more so. Recently, the works of Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Verdi, and Puccini have returned to the famous stage.
The Bolshoi Theatre team worked on Turandot for a year. They wanted to present the result back in September, but decided to bring the performance to perfection. The complex rehearsal process had to synchronize the work of all workshops and more than a hundred artists.
"Turandot" runs with two intermissions: this is necessary to change the large-scale scenery. The artist Vyacheslav Okunev built a fragment of the Great Wall of China on the stage. The opera takes place in Beijing, including the Imperial Palace and its surroundings. The duration of the action has not been determined. In the original, these are "fabulous times", which gives the set designer the opportunity to fantasize.
Okunev was inspired by Bertolucci's films and the production of "Turandot," a classic by Franco Zeffirelli. This formed his own image. Beijing here is gray, with a metallic sheen, with scarlet bruises that paint the wall every now and then. This scenery is complicated, it moves apart, it opens. The wall serves as both the backyards and the main halls of the palace. As the artist confessed to Izvestia, the theater's management did not restrain his imagination in working on the production: "I did everything I wanted to do."
Blood feud
Female cruelty became the main theme of the play. Once upon a time, a foreign warrior abused Turandot's great-grandmother, Princess Low-Lin. Now the cruel girl is taking revenge for the violated honor of the ancestor to all men. Turandot tells the story of Low-Lin in his beautiful aria, and illustrates the narrative with a cartoon. It was created especially for the performance.
Video projections appear throughout the entire action. Close-ups show the faces of foreign princes who are sent to execution by Turandot. They have tears of blood running from their eyes. In a terrible fairy tale, men set out on their own on a disastrous path. Dazzled by Turandot's beauty, they are ready to risk their lives and try to solve her three mysteries.
—The aria "In questa reggia" and the riddles of Kalaf are the most difficult things that Puccini wrote for the soprano," said People's Artist of Azerbaijan Dinara Aliyeva, who performs the main role. — These episodes provoke many singers to fortissimo and aggression, but professionalism must be used here.
The image created by Vyacheslav Okunev is not at all close to the singer. She appears to the audience as a rocker: in high heels, in leather trousers, sometimes in a red, then in a silver leather jacket.
An unfeminine affair
In the imperial palace, the guards are girls: slender, long—legged, in breeches, tunics, with batons in their hands. They famously crack down on disgruntled residents of Beijing. The mimance artists have not only mastered working with piercing and cutting objects, but also demonstrate elements of kung fu. The executioner Pu-Ting-Pao is also a woman. In this part, Nadezhda Anisiforova is on stage.
Liu is a slave girl in love with the son of the deposed Tatar king Timur, Kalaf. Her part is performed by the soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, soprano Polina Shabunina. It's a difficult, tragic role. Liu can't show her feelings to the chosen one, because they are doomed. She's ready to die for him. After her dying aria, the audience couldn't hold back their emotions and gave Polina an ovation.
Only Kalaf knows the answer to Turandot's riddles. This part is performed by Ivan Gyngazov. He has two dozen different productions of Turandot on his record. Kalaf has a stylish, modern look: a leather raincoat, gray trousers tucked into high boots, and a backpack on his shoulders.
The Olympics and the Jedi
Red is the basis of the second act. The constructed Chinese Wall turns around the stadium grandstand, which is entered by festive columns of Olympians in red jackets trimmed with gold. The girls are wearing white pleated skirts, the men are wearing white trousers. They have flags in their hands.
Everyone is waiting for the appearance of Emperor Altoum (Andrey Nyukhalov) in the arena. He is carried out by the golden boys on a stretcher. Three ministers — Ping (Vasily Sokolov), Pang (Ruslan Babaev), Pong (Tikhon Goryachev) — appear before the audience like the Jedi from Star Wars. They defend themselves with lightsabers. And it immediately makes the audience smile.
Closer to the finale, the golden symbol of the emperor's power appears on the stage in the form of a huge gong, the golden robes of the choir and, of course, the magnificent Turandot, like the Moon shining and inaccessible. The princess remains unbroken, she does not give free rein to the feelings that Kalaf has awakened in her. An oath made many years ago is unbreakable.
As Alexey Frandetti admits, if you want to curse the director, wish him to come up with the final duet of Calaf and Turandot. In the Big One, it lasts 12 minutes. In Frandetti's version, Turandot and Kalaf play with guns. The blade that Liu stabbed herself with is moving from hand to hand. Either the princess wants to stab the prince, or he dangerously holds a knife next to the girl's face. At the same time, he promises to melt her heart with a kiss.
Listening to Kalaf's speeches, Turandot only says: "My greatness is over! What a shame!" But death is already spinning around in seductive red robes. In the next scene, Turandot carries the prince's head on a platter. And the women's choir sings the final theme, which the princess picks up and proclaims: "Love lights up the world. In immeasurable joy, we praise her light! Glory to you! Glory!".
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
