Visit To Russia—lll GRAND OPERA ON A GRAND SCALE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28836, 5 March 1959, Page 10

Visit To Russia—lll GRAND OPERA ON A GRAND SCALE

IBu JULIUS HOGBEN, president of the Auckland Festioal Society, V recentty returned from a cultural eisit to Russia.)

Every theatre and concert hall which we visited in Russia (with ■ one exception) seemed more beautiful than the last The theatres are ornate the concert < halls plain, and all ip very good : taste. Each theatre has its extensive ' stalls and four or more galleries. There was never a vacant seat at ■ any performance, with prices ranging from three to 30 roubles, ' and every audience was keen, knowledgable, and critical. 1 At the opera the hum of conversation immediately ceases when the conductor enters. Overtures, , which after all were composed to be heard, are listened to in com- , plete appreciative silence. In Russia we saw and heard 23 , performances of many different . kinds, without counting rehearsals. Some were superb; some were ' very good; very few were medi- ■ ocre; one was bad. Our first theatre was the Bolshoi Filial, the offshoot of the Bolshoi, which later , was unfortunately closed for renovation. Our first opera was , “La Traviata.” The staging! The stage is all of 70 feet in width and 50 in depth. In one side in the opening ; scene stood a table which we ' hardly noticed until 22 people ' sat down at it. The staircase ' appeared to be of solid marble ' and with 20 people going up and down gave no sign of swaying. ( The frocking was exquisite. ( The orchestra of over 60 under Dokshizev was as fine as one could hear anywhere; it was never ; less than superb and the orchestra . and chorus and orchestra and , soloists were always as one. ( Fine Chorus Work In this performance soloists 1 from the People’s Theatre were substituted in some parts for Bolshoi soloists on holiday. They were competent, but not outstanding, although the baritone and tenor (Germont father and son) were satisfying vocally and as actors. The Violetta was certainly not as good as Mary O’Brien in Auckland. But the choruses were marvellous. The very large choruses could move with ease on the Russian stages. When Alfredo sang his first solo we realised that the opera was being sung in Russian, as was every opera we heard. If the standard was not as high 1 as the best in Russia, it was still 1 better than opera we see in New ' Zealand, and it was satisfying and '■ exciting. The greatest operatic performance we saw was of Anton Rubinstein’s “The Demon,” unknown ■ to any of us but a favourite with < Russian- audiences, for whom the part of the Demon was made famous by Chaliapin. In this per- ' formance the Demon was magnificently played and sung by Y. V. Dementev. A description of the performance will give some idea of stage presentations in Russia. On the curtain rising for the first act we saw a mountainous scene with a < rough pathway set at a level about 15 feet above the stage and : leading down to the stage itself Tn the background was a stormy : sky with lightning flashing and occasional thunder and with storm clouds rushing across the sky. obviously a cyclorama, but I picked out one special cloud and failed to recognise it on a second time round.

Lighting Effects The first appearance of the Demon was a surprise; one part of the mountain path was in darkness one moment and then suddenly the Demon was there looking ghostly, an effect apparently brought about by a strong vertical shaft of light projected behind him and a dim light on him from the front. The lightning effects were a triumph, as they could be with at least seven projection points behind the proscenium.

These artistic mechanical effects are commonplace to Russian audiences. Every theatre we visited had a revolving stage. But even the Russians were moved to applause when the curtain went up oh a later scene. In this there was a mountain ravine on one side with a flowing stream ending in a waterfall, over which real water appeared to be continuously flowing, gushing and sparkling. On the stage two campfires appeared to be really burning and giving off smoke which was blown away off stage. The performance of the opera equalled the stage presentation. The conductor here was G. G. Zhemchuzin, who had chorus and orchestra of 18 under complete control. The singing of one aria by the Demon was so moving that it brought tears to the eyes of at least one member of the audience who found from the translation at the end of the aria that the Demon was singing that he knew he was acquiring human feelings because tears were running down his cheeks. The soprano, an "honoured artist of the Russian Soviet,” which status we found to be a real criterion of artistic merit, was another artist unknown outside Russia, E. I. Shumilova. There was a wonderful bass, L. M. Ktitorov, with a voice of great range and every note of it possessing the real bass quality one so seldom hears. All in all, it was a truly great performance, itself a handsome reward for a trip of nearly 20,000 miles to hear it

Opulent Verdi We saw three other operas. Verdi’s “Don Carlos" and "Aida," and Bizet’s “Carmen.” The two Verdi operas we saw in Leningrad at the Malii Opera House, another beautiful theatre. There were different conductors for the two operas, G. A. Donyakh for “Don Carlos” and E. P. Krikurov for “Aida.” There seems to be no lack of good conductors in Russia. Like most of the good performers, they are unknown outside the country, although famous within it The staging of “Aida” on the outside Leningrad stage made it apparent how impossible It would be to present the opera convincingly on our small New Zealand stages. The buildings, which looked like real stone, rose 40 feet from the stage. There were two statues over 20 feet in height In Act 2. Scene 2, there were on the stage 16 players of brass instruments for the music written for them, none of them taken from the orchestra of 80. • An 80-strong chorus did not crowd the stage. How wonderful

it was everywhere to hear choruses where the tenor line was as strong as the bass! “Aida" is not an opera which can be produced on a shoestring; it can be satisfactorily presented in Russia—this applies to all opera—because the State subsidises opera to the extent of something like £1 million a year, lb Russia the Government regards music as an essential part of the life of the people; so do the people. A Multi-Ungual “Carmen” Our fifth opera was “Carmen,’* which we saw in Kiev, and which was not up to the standard set by ohr previous operatic experiences. Once again the orchestra, with a visiting Rumanian conductor, was first-class, but the staging and dressing were poor, and the principals were no virtuosi. The male chorus just good, the female chorus very good. The part of Carmen was played by a visiting Rumanian soprana whose vital statistics were somewhat too generous for an ideal Carmen, and who could not dance, but could act and sing. The Escamillo was a Bulgarian who sang in Bulgarian, while Carmen answered him singing in French, and the chorus sang Ukrainian, all of which made it so much more interesting. We decided that this was the night for us to have our evening meal before 11, so we left early.

Our great disappointment in Kiev, however, was that seats could not be got for us to hear the great pianist, Gilels. We were told that two members of the executive of the Communist Party could not get seats; so what chance did we have? (To be continued)