DAMMIT. What a waste. Just when Scottish Opera, a company always in
need of a little good news, look as though they have a rewarding
showcase item in the Edinburgh Festival, someone pulls the plug on them.
The showcase was Tchaikovsky's opera, The Oprichnik -- a real rarity,
not a dramatic masterpiece, but with some absolutely splendid (and
unmistakeable) music. Here and there a very impressive piece: some
superb choral crowd scenes, which would be worth seeing staged; glorious
writing for the soprano soloist, and at least one arguably great duet
and some typically colourful orchestral writing.
The plug-puller was the Russian tenor, Paolo Kudriavchenko. He was
obviously in trouble from the outset. After half-time the festival's new
associate director, James Waters, came on to explain that the singer had
a throat infection. Frankly, I suspect there was more to it. The sound,
much of the time, was excrutiating; but the singer was ill at ease
throughout the night.
He was patently lost, shuffling through his score, in this heavily
abridged version; asking his neighbours where they were in the music;
and -- most suspiciously -- sounding, with that unmistakeable sense of
uncertainty, as though he was sight-reading. It was a fatal distraction.
As I said, what a waste. Otherwise, well cast with several singers --
notably soprano Galina Gorchakova and mezzo Ludmila Nam (enormous
voices) -- in stunning form. Conductor Mark Ermler failed to tame the
ScotOp brass which, unleashed from the pit, went bananas, frequently
drowning out the sonorous chorus. Super piece; any chance of a rerun
sometime?
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