DATELINE NEW YORK: Ukrainian singers at Lincoln Center (07/27/03)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Ukrainian singers at Lincoln Center

by Helen Smindak

In a co-presentation with Lincoln Center Festival 2003, the Kirov Opera of St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater staged six works at the Metropolitan Opera this month - Verdi's thrilling "Macbeth," a special concert performance of Anton Rubinstein's "The Demon," and masterpieces by four of Russia's greatest composers (the Kirov included Tchaikovsky in this category, along with Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev).

Opera buffs of all ethnic origins welcomed the Kirov presentations. For the Ukrainian community, the important news is that the three-week Kirov run included the North American premiere of a Prokofiev opera with a Ukrainian setting and a Ukrainian hero - the three-act 1940 work "Semyon Kotko."

What is also newsworthy, the Kirov productions brought to the Met stage several Ukrainian singers in leading roles - baritone Vassily Gerello, tenors Vladimir Grishko and Viktor Lutsiuk, bass-baritone Mikhail Kit and mezzo-soprano Olga Markova-Mikhailenko - whose contributions were warmly received by both their audiences and the press.

Prokofiev, a Russian composer who was born in eastern Ukraine, chose Valentin Katayev's 1937 novella, "I Am a Son of the Working People," as the subject for a patriotic opera when he returned to Soviet Russia from Western Europe at the climax of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. Scholars of Russian music regard this time as a period when codification of socialist realism demanded the expression of Marxist-Leninist political thought, Communist Party allegiance and revolutionary populism.

These doctrines are evident as the story unfolds around Semyon Kotko, a demobilized Ukrainian soldier who returns to his native village in 1918 after a four-year stint in the Russian Army. Anticipating the warmth and familiar pleasures of home after the rigors of war, he instead receives a political education from the Bolsheviks who are still warring against the Germans and all manner of counterrevolutionaries.

Unlike the original opera, which was set in the Ukrainian steppe, the Kirov production employs an abstract depiction of the aftermath of war, with the wreckage of trains, mills and army field weapons spilling across a raked platform.

A constantly moving mill serves as the "hammer" for a huge sickle-shaped piece of debris stuck in the background.

As villagers emerge from craters in the ground to greet the returning soldier, Semyon is reunited with his sweetheart Sofia, the daughter of the rich peasant Tkachenko, who plots against the Bolsheviks and plans to marry his daughter to the heir of a prosperous landowner. Other important characters include Sofia's good friend Lyubka and her fiancé Tsyarov, a husky sailor and loyal Bolshevik, and Semyon's sister Frosia and her sweetheart Mikola, and Remeniuk, head of the village council (soviet) and commander of a partisan unit.

Throughout the opera, the language and the music come across with a distinctly Ukrainian flavor, reflecting Prokofiev's memories of his childhood, spent as the son of a Russian estate agent in the Ukrainian countryside. Folk customs are portrayed in such rituals as the village betrothal ceremony, when Semyon's two matchmakers, with embroidered ritual cloths around their shoulders, come to Tkachenko's house to seek Sofia's hand in marriage.

Act II shows the people cowering in fear as opposing forces - Reds, Whites, Germans and partisans - collide in a blood-soaked melee. The Reds are portrayed in Ku Klux Klan-ish red robes and cone-shaped hats, the Whites in long white coats and tall white hats, the Germans in recognizable military uniforms, while the partisans (referred to as "Cossacks") are garbed in furry black coats and hats.

Toward the end of the opera, a bearded old priest (described in the program notes as a blind bandurist) cradles an icon in his arms as he laments the troubles of Ukraine.

In the final scene, as a unit of the Red Army enters the village and a massive head of Lenin rises from a crater in the background, the villagers, dressed in matching grey Soviet uniforms and holding aloft their doctrinal red books, sing that now Ukraine will be free from foreign domination.

It was surprising to note at one point in the opera that the choral work seemed to echo the words of Taras Shevchenko - "Remember to mention me... remember me with a good, quiet word!" Was this Prokofiev's way of getting around the censors, or simply a coincidence?

Points of view

Although Prokofiev created his artistic world as a parallel to reality, one wonders what today's Ukrainian citizens think about this Soviet-period opera.

From the Kirov's Ukrainian principals, "Dateline" obtained contradictory responses. One professed ignorance of the opera, while another told us that the opera is "almost never done" in Ukraine because it does not have a solid Ukrainian theme like "Mazeppa." A third declared that the opera is performed in Ukraine and is "very popular."

Other viewpoints were expressed at a "Semyon Kotko" symposium at Lincoln Center on July 9. Prof. Simon Morrison of Princeton University, a musicologist who moderated the symposium, believes that this politically charged opera poses a special challenge. He contended that for most Russian listeners the verbal content is unpalatable, even laughable, but the music, despite being bound up with the texts, remains "variably appealing."

Symposium speaker Catherine Nepomyashche, who delved into the literary and historical context of the opera, described "Semyon Kotko" as "a very interesting piece, a brilliant opera that's a hymn to Ukraine."

Ms. Nepomyashche, the director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and chair of the Slavic department at Barnard College, pointed out that although the opera is in Russian "it has a lot of Ukrainianisms in the language and is steeped in Ukrainian traditions."

Though not of Slavic ancestry (she comes by her Russian name through marriage), Ms. Nepomyashche became obsessed with "Semyon Kotko" while researching important Russian writers of the Soviet period.

The New York Times' critic Anthony Tommasini, in his July 10 review, termed the opening night performance of the opera "stylistically insightful and authoritative."

Describing the production as "an episodic score of intentionally contrasting scenes calculated for clear dramatic effects," he pointed to wistfully lyrical outpourings by peasant characters, some fashioned from Ukrainian folk music, and stock comic bits, like the scene for busybody female villagers who ogle Semyon.

Mr. Tommasini concluded that the production - "an arresting yet flawed work, compromised by censors and politics" - does everything possible to bring out whatever ironic subtext resides in the score and to present the opera in an embracing and humanistic context.

An appraisal of the Kirov Opera presentations was given by David Shengold in the July issue of the Met Playbill. Writing about the final act of "Semyon Kotko," he concluded that the transition from the idyllic opening with lovers' meetings to its "horror-struck choral conclusion" after a murderous German incursion was "dramatic power rarely matched in 20th-century opera."

Singers win praises

The most impressive singers in the first-night presentation of "Semyon Kotko," in Mr. Tommasini's opinion, were Mr. Lutsiuk in the title role and the soprano Tatiana Pavlovskaya as Sofia, who also sang these roles on the Kirov's 2000 recording of the work. Mr. Lutsiuk, a native of Ukraine's Volyn region, also appeared in "Khovanshchina" and "The Invisible City of Kitezh." Previously heard in New York with the Kirov Opera in "Mazeppa," the tenor has sung roles with opera companies in Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, Milan, Munich and Zurich.

Mr. Kit, who hails from the southwestern city of Kolomyia, gave an excellent performance as the white-haired priest in "Semyon Kotko" and sang the role of Prince Gremin in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin." Appearing in Mussorgsky's folk-music drama "Khovanshchina," the 60-year-old bass-baritone sang with fervor and reverence as he interpreted the lead role of Dosifei, the spiritual leader of the Old Believers, a rigidly traditional religious sect of 17th century Russia.

Mr. Gerello, who made his Met debut in 1997 as Alfio in "Cavalleria Rusticana," was praised by The New York Times' Anne Midgette for his "large baritone with a bit of a burr" and "a commendable warmth in places" as he sang the title role in "Macbeth." Ms. Midgette, felt, however, that Mr. Gerello showed "little Italianate expression;" she apparently is unaware that Mr. Gerello inherited Italian blood from one of his ancestors. Mr. Gerello appeared as well in "Eugene Onegin."

Mr. Grishko, known to the New York public since 1995 from his performances at the New York City Opera and the Met, appeared in "Khovanshchina" as Prince Andrei Khovansky, who with his father, Prince Ivan Khovansky, is allied with the Old Believers against the young czar Peter. A native of Kyiv, the tenor also sang roles in "Macbeth" and "Kitezh."

On the distaff side, Ms. Markova-Mikhailenko appeared in "Semyon Kotko" as Tkachenko's wife Khivria and in "Eugene Onegin." In The New York Times' review of "Onegin" on July 20, Allan Kozzin commended the mezzo-soprano for her strong contribution as the old nurse and Mr. Kit for his "solid account" of Prince Gremin's aria.

A number of Ukrainian artists assisted the chorus and the orchestra, which was conducted by Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky Theater's artistic director and principal guest conductor at the Met.

Helen Smindak's e-mail address is [email protected].

Gerello to release Ukrainian CD

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