Well, I watched the video of the blu-ray of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve the other evening, and about the best I can say is it wasn’t awful. It certainly won’t displace my affection for the 1977 English language production from Indiana University, especially now that I have the video of that to watch again.

First, the good news. The musical performances by the conductor, orchestra, and singers were all top notch, so it’s good to at last have a modern sounding recording in Russian of (I believe) the entire opera. And for the record, the Frankfurter Opera and Museum Orchestra was conducted by Sebastian Weigle, Vakula was performed by George Vasiliev, Oksana was Julia Muzychenko, and the Chorus of the Frankfurter Opera was led by Tilman Michael, so kudos all around and to the rest of the cast as well.

And for a change I wasn’t too annoyed by the video itself, so that was reasonably well done, without relying too heavily on closeups of the singers.

The production itself looked like it was done on a shoestring budget as most of the scenes were done on a relatively bare stage with minimal props, and I could have enjoyed that as I’ve enjoyed many a concert performance of operas and musicals over the years.

Except— 

The Stage Director Chrstof Loy, like so many stage directors before him, just couldn’t leave well enough alone and trust to Rimsky’s music. He had to keep filling the stage with extraneous action that was not only unnecessary but ultimately distracting from the story. It’s a real shame, because according to the interview with him that’s included in the blu-ray insert, he loves this opera and seems to have a real understanding of it. Why couldn’t he let the story unfold without distractions?

I find this is a common failing among stage directors of operas these days. Perhaps I should just be grateful he didn’t move all the action to a Las Vegas casino or a New York City cocktail party. <sigh>

On the other hand, he missed many opportunities to create magical stage effects. The opera is based on Gogol’s folklore-laced story and thus involves a witch, the devil, a wizard, a midnight flight to St. Petersburg, and other supernatural phenomena. 

To take just one example. The blacksmith Vakula, desperate to obtain the cherivicki (slippers worn by Catherine the Great) for his beloved Oksana, has decided enlist the help of the devil, although unbeknownst to him, because of a farcical series of events, he’s carrying the devil in his coal sack. So he goes to see the wizard Patsyuk, who is so lazy that he makes his biscuits magically fly into his mouth—as Vakula sings when he sees him. Except Christof Loy has Patsyuk played by a singer with a big ugly bulbous mask over his head, and instead of the biscuits flying into his mouth, there is a slave girl feeding him.

Not at all magical.

By contrast, here’s how the students of the Indiana University staged that scene back in 1977. Even with the faded dark video, you can see the simple but clever means they used, and how it works with Rimsky’s music, not against it.

After Vakula outwits the devil, he has the devil fly him to St. Petersburg. At this point Rimsky inserts an orchestral interlude which would be a perfect time to either let the music speak for itself or make use of modern technology to project images of the fantastic flight.

Stage Director Christof Loy does neither. He brings out a ballerina and a dancing bear! What they have to do with the story, only Herr Loy knows. Eventually the ballerina convinces the bear to remove its costume to reveal a cute guy in shorts, and they continue dancing.

Anyway, as I said, I didn’t think it was awful, but at times, like with the dancing bear, it came awfully close.

There still remains the question of why I always choke up when Vakula tells the crowd that he won’t reveal how he got the cherivicki, but he’ll only tell the tale to (in this translation) Panko the beekeeper (it was Panko who was the storyteller in Gogol’s story). Given that this performance was sung in Russian and I had to follow in subtitles (though I know it quite well without the translation), and given that I was annoyed by a lot of the staging, it should come as no surprise that I wasn’t reacting quite as emotionally at the end when Vakula launched into his final little arietta. But then at the conclusion as the whole company joins in the final chorus, Vakula and Oksana hold up a portrait of Gogol, and with just that little gesture, I choked up.

Now I’ve always known that Rimsky included that epilogue as a tribute to Gogol (it says so in the score), so perhaps that’s why I choke up at that point. It’s one artist paying his respects to another, and that’s what I find moving. Anyway, it’s the best that I can come up with.

 

 

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