Armed Man In the Opera
The last premiere of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci at the National Opera in Kyiv caused controversial responses. On the one hand, the audience encored the baritone Vyacheslav Lupalov’s prologue; on the other, the true lovers of classical music were taken aback by the experimental production of Austrian stage director Philip Arnoncour and Ukrainian conductor Kyrylo Karabyts. Primarily because, instead of an arresting tragedy of love, hatred, and perfidy, the new version offered a kind of farce in a kitsch-filled setting (production design by Mariya Levytska). Also, the new production lacked conceptual integrity and the innovations looked quite irrelevant – as with corps de ballet pairs waltzing behind Nedda (Kateryna Strashchenko) singing about her heart being torn by love. Naturally, everybody watched the dancers and the psychologically powerful moment was simply lost; in another scene the choir sings with their backs to the audience, so the sound is muffled. Some of the cast appeared clad in modern costumes, striking a discordant note in the plot, others emerged from the orchestra; there were cheering extras planted in the pit and in the circle. To make things worse, just as Canio (Oleksandr Hurets) sings the immortal Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore in franto! the stage props slide apart, and in the finale the main hero appears with a gun. All this experimenting seems a bit much, finally shattering the new production’s shaky structure. Arnoncour, trying to make the opera more dynamic, made the cast run around the stage, stressing the dramatic identification, apparently oblivious of the fact that such exertions had an adverse effect on their vocal cords.
Actually, within a theater scene of the second act, with Nedda playing the coquettish Colombina, Canio the jealous Fool, Peppe (Marian Talaba) the lady-killing Harlequin, and the corps de ballet acting as an audience, the actual audience responded in kind, laughing at the simple funny love triangle. Then suddenly amid the merrymaking with boys (dressed as extras) blowing soap bubbles, Nedda and her lover are killed. It came not as part of the plot, but as a tragic mishap. La commedia e finita! The curtain was rung down, with half the audience applauding and the other just shrugging, totally confused.
Philip Arnoncour wagered on the young, vented his imagination, and no one seemed to object. This is unfortunate. He is new in opera and has never worked with a cast so large (although he was presented to journalists as “a noted stage director”). True, he had staged performances, but not on the most important Ukrainian stage. In fact, it is not Philip but his father who is famous: the celebrated Austrian maestro Nicholas Arnoncour. His son was not even perturbed by the absence of the National Opera’s cast of a dramatic tenor (a problem faced by a number of other companies across the world). Our veteran theatergoers are bound to remember the excellent Vasyl Tretiak and his sparkling vocal and dramatic performance of Canio Oleksandr Hurets is obviously lacking by comparison. His upper notes are great, but the middle register needs more expressiveness. What he is actually very good at is lyrical tenor parties. Besides, he had no time to work on the dramatic nuances; he was a last-minute addition to the cast. Kateryna Strashchenko has a beautiful soprano, but Nedda requires a stronger voice with a deeper dramatic emphasis. Silvio (Mykhailo Kyryshev), however, turned out the weakest link in the chain; the singer showed neither vocal nor dramatic talent. In many respects, the whole performance was kept afloat by the current vocal “premier danseur” Roman Maiboroda. His Tonio was a real devil, an intriguing Casanova inflamed by Nedda’s rejection. The opera, in addition to sophisticated vocal parts, requires a lot of dramatic identification and the man is very good, indeed.
Considering that all the rehearsals were a shambles, one can only marvel at the opera actually premiering.
While the stage director’s experimentation leaves much to be desired, in terms of music Pagliacci was an excellent debut of the young Ukrainian conductor Kyrylo Karabyts. He was subtly aware of all Leoncavallo nuances and masterfully conveyed them with the orchestra providing a soft and captivating accompaniment. Congratulations, Maestro! Kyrylo’s father is the late noted composer Ivan Karabyts and his mother Marianna Kapytsa teaches at the Tchaikovsky Music Academy. He has spent four years with the Kyiv Camerata Ensemble and appeared in Kyiv Music Fest. Recently, he took a course of training abroad, working with various symphony orchestras in Hungary, Germany, Finland, Italy, and the United States, which has, of course, added to his professionalism. A couple of weeks ago he won a contest as a second conductor of the French Radio Philharmonic and will start working in that capacity this fall.
