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Fake Russia

Stereotypes rule people. And entire nations. Growing out of prejudices and superstitions, they successfully control the minds of the majority. Some residents of the United States and Europe still believe that in Russia, for example, there is eternal winter, and here we are riding bears and lashing vodka from nesting dolls. The current conflict in Ukraine has exposed all existing stereotypes to the limit, only not in an exaggerated form with bears and nesting dolls, but in the features of a national character, both on the one hand and on the other, both Russian and Ukrainian.

Stereotypes are really a terrible thing. Because it is incredibly effective and long-lasting. And the further she plays, the more hypertrophied and absurd it becomes. And there are two ways here – one goes into absolute hatred and rejection in any form, the other – into a selective and spreading cranberry. The first one leads to nowhere, because it ends in murder, that is, tragedy, the second one leads to a new cultural layer, emerging like an archaeological cultural layer year after year and century after century, tamping down absurdities and stupidities and turning them into a comedy. And in a comedy on serious cabbage soup, as they say now. And it affects all spheres of human cultural activity without exception. Everything about cinema has been clear for a long time (it is the most effective of cranberry tools), painting, sculpture and literature, in principle, are also no secret to anyone. But with the opera, the story turned out to be incredibly exciting.

This is how the Russian Tsar looks like according to the German theatrical canons of the Baroque era

Today we will talk about the pseudo-Russian opera composed by European composers. Mega-cranberry opera, absurd, funny, but made in all seriousness. Of course, when Soviet power began in Russia, no one in the West began to compose operas about it – here’s another. But about the old Russia, the boyars, which existed right up to Peter the Great – you are welcome. Actually, Pyotr Alekseevich became the most popular character in that awkward opera skit, which was staged in the 18th-19th centuries on the European opera stage by Meyerbeer, Lorzing, Gretry, Pacini, Vakkay and many others. Donizetti outdid everyone, giving out as many as two operas about Peter, one more ridiculous than the other (you can read more about this carnival here and here). But the theme of pre-Petrine, boyar Rus’ seemed more colorful and exotic, which gave rise to several rather strange operas. Well, what, the soil is fertile – hipster boyars, towers, distant Asian Russia in snows and furs … Such an exotic! No worse than some Turkish, Indian or Chinese stories. Today, our heroes will be three composers, the names of two of which are known to everyone, and the third – to almost no one (except perhaps in narrow circles of musicologists and conductors). These are Georges Bizet, Antonin Dvorak and Johann Mattheson.

Johann Mattheson

Let’s start with Mattheson, since he comes first in chronology – this is the Baroque era. In Russia, this composer is generally unknown, but in Europe he is a significant figure, and not thanks to his musical compositions, but, first of all, thanks to compositions of a different kind – Mattheson was one of the first major music theorists. It can be said that the principles of composition of most European baroque composers, including Handel, who was friends with Mattheson for many years, are based on his works. Mattheson’s three-volume treatise “Orchestra” remains a relevant guide for conductors and musicians to this day. The author was originally from Hamburg, where he lived and worked all his life, and there he rested in the church of St. Michael the Archangel, the very one whose post of organist was one of the most prestigious in Germany and which Bach so unsuccessfully tried to take in his time. In the wake of extensive contacts with Russia, which began thanks to the activities of Peter the Great, who was largely oriented towards Holland and Northern Germany, Mattheson became the first composer in history to compose an opera based on a Russian plot. Before that, in European opera, Poland was considered the most exotic of Eastern European countries, and works based on Polish stories were incredibly popular, and almost always, when it was necessary to compose some entertaining nonsense. This trend continued until the beginning of the 19th century, until Poland ceased to exist, being finally divided between Austria, Prussia and Russia. But this is a completely separate issue. The very first “Russian” opera in Europe was “Boris Godunov”.

Title page of the score of Boris Godunov (Gudenov) by Mattheson

No, you heard right. And Mussorgsky with his brilliant masterpiece has absolutely nothing to do with it. Mattheson composed his “Boris” in 1710, and the entire opera was called “Boris Gudenov, or the throne obtained by treachery, or an honor happily associated with passion” – “Boris Goudenow oder Der durch Verschlagenheit erlangte Thron oder Die mit der Neigung glücklich Verknüpfte Ehre “. Quite a baroque, long and pretentious name. The surname of the Russian tsar has been changed, and it is no coincidence that only a hundred years passed between the events of the Time of Troubles and the creation of the opera, perhaps Boris was then called that way in Europe, even before the creation of an official historical concept under Catherine the Great. The musical work is absolutely baroque, with a laconic and even chamber orchestra characteristic of the northern style, where there are almost no brass wind instruments. The construction of the opera is also baroque, simply to the point of disgrace, with all the consecutive appearances of characters, interspersing slow and bravura arias and duets and indispensable buffoonery numbers. The libretto in German was composed by Mattheson himself, using the work of Peter Petrei “Regni Muscowitici Sciographia” (“History of the Principality of Moscow”) and borrowing from some Italian colleagues the text for a number of arias. This was completely in line with the then rules – the Hamburg public demanded exclusively understandable texts, but did not disdain fashionable Italian inserts “for grace”, as they said then. The plot is based on the death of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, who, dying, orders the boyars to appoint Boris the ruler of Moscow, but not of Russia. Then the court intrigues of the boyars begin, so Boris and his sister Irina go to the monastery, where the people go to ask him to accept the crown. The buffoonish character Bogdan, necessary for the baroque performance, directs the process – the function of comedy here is not only to entertain the public between serious arias, but also to resolve the plot plot. The deputation organized by Bogdan is successful – Boris returned to Moscow, took the throne and saved the fatherland from boyar intrigues.

One of the few Italian arias that Tsar Boris sings in Mattheson’s opera is a fragment of a performance from the St. Petersburg festival of early music EARLYMUSIC, 2007. Belgian bass Shadi Torbe sings

The plot is completely cranberry and implausible. Because, in addition to Boris, Irina and Bogdan, here we see a certain daughter of Boris Aksinya (apparently, a distorted Xenia), who has an affair with the Swedish ambassador Gustav (in the German score he is called Gavust – the order of letters has been changed so that there are no hints of real-life characters – that is, Russians are allowed, but Europeans are not!), a certain Russian princess Olga, who has an affair with the boyar Ivan (what rare Russian names!), And the boyar Fyodor Romanov, who has an affair with Irina Godunova. There is also the overseas prince Johannes (Josennag in the score), the main villain and intriguer who is left with nothing (geht als Bösewicht leer aus). It all ends with the wedding of three couples in love, the punishment of the villain and the coronation of Tsar Boris. Historical story that has nothing to do with reality. A beautiful and ornate Baroque fantasy on an exotic Russian theme, which was born due to current historical events – Peter then actually negotiated with the Hamburgers about the creation of a Russian mission in the city, which was supposed to establish trade contacts, report to St. Petersburg about what was happening in all of Northern Germany, and about whether the Hamburg newspapers printed fake news about Russia. The mission did not take place, and the opera did not take place – it was never staged. The score ended up in the archive, from where at 19In the year 38, it migrated to the Archive of Rare Manuscripts in Dresden. It partially survived the brutal Allied bombings and ended up in the hands of the Red Army, having moved to Leningrad, and with it the score of Boris Gudenov. From there, fate brought her to Yerevan, from where she was transferred to Germany in 1998. For the first time this rare opera was staged only in 2005 in Boston.

Georges Bizet – photo

A similar fate awaited the work of another composer, whose name is known to everyone – this is Georges Bizet. The young and promising composer, who tried his hand at opera several times and did not succeed, dreamed of creating a large-scale canvas that would bring him fame. His main success in the opera at that time was the amazing “Pearl Seekers”, which successfully passed at the Lyric Theater in Paris, but did not have the resounding success that the works of Meyerbeer, Gounod and even Offenbach. And Bizet dreamed of creating something epic and powerful, and certainly on a historical plot, in order to crush the audience on a grand scale. And when he was offered a libretto for a story “from Russian history”, he immediately agreed, especially knowing that Gounod had already worked with him. An opera about Ivan the Terrible based on the Russian plot of Gounod, which was then in vogue after Alexander II’s liberal flirting with Europe, was offered by the Grand Opera. He honestly composed the music, but violated all the deadlines, so the production did not take place, and the composer distributed half of the finished music to his new works, including Faust. Bizet set to work with enthusiasm, since the libretto allowed him to do something in the style of the “Prophet” or “Huguenots” of Meyerbeer, his idol. The opera was called “Ivan IV” (that is, the generally accepted historiography with the incorrect numbering of Russian tsars had already taken shape and gained a foothold) and took the form of a classic grand French opera with five acts, powerful and lengthy choirs, ballet and filigree singing, requiring incredible endurance from soloists. However, Leon Carvalho, director of the Lyric Theater, rejected it, sending Bizet with his opus to the Grand Opera – such a scope, machinery and magnificent costumes were beyond his power. There, too, they lost interest in her, mindful of the work of Gounod. In a word, no one wanted to stage Bizet’s “Russian” opera. Nobody even wanted to publish it. It was said that the composer burned the score in desperation.

This is how Ivan the Terrible sounds in Bizet, performed by the French bass-baritone Ludovic Tezier – in my opinion, very romantic, a sort of dreamer tsar))

However, she survived. After Bizet’s death, his widow remarried – in the papers of her second husband, and these notes were discovered in 1929. Something was not preserved, so I had to restore the missing fragments from the drafts of Bizet himself. As a result, the first full-fledged production of Ivan IV took place in Bordeaux in 1951. Surprisingly, this opera turned out to be chronologically sandwiched between two of the composer’s masterpieces – “The Pearl Seekers” and composed after “The Beauty of Perth”. Both of them are a source of stunningly beautiful melodies, bright and memorable, which cannot be said about Ivan. Everything seems to be in place here – the choirs are powerful, the individual vocal parts are superbly spelled out, the scale is sweeping, the richness and ornamentalism of the music are professional, but the result is nothing. There is practically not a single brilliant melody that would immediately crash into memory and melt the heart. Bizet’s “Russian” opera is incredibly technical, but it has absolutely no soul. And Russia without a soul is like France without Paris. Today, this opera is not only practically not staged, it is not staged at all. She just doesn’t need anyone. Probably also due to the idiocy of the plot, far from reality, like the Earth from Jupiter.

Incredibly ethnically colored aria of a young Bulgarian, which he sings about his homeland. Any motives, just not Bulgarian, but still terribly beautiful)). The choir in the background – Russian boyars, because the action takes place at a feast in the Kremlin – is performed by the Danish mezzo-soprano Henriette Bonde-Hansen

opera basses are not sung). He personally goes to the Caucasus (!) to look for a bride among the Circassians, where he meets Maria Temryukovna, the daughter of the local prince Temryuk. Then the Brazilian series begins with conspiracies, chases, Maria’s brother Igor (this is a Circassian name, right? .. – very reminiscent of Frankenstein’s servant Igor from films with Boris Karloff), the evil boyar Yurlov, who almost overthrows Ivan from the throne, and changing several locations in the Kremlin. If we ignore the idea that everything happens in Russia, then you can still live, but it doesn’t work – it’s written like this … So it turns out that the most colorful character in the opera is a young Bulgarian who is in the servitude of Tsar Ivan and who performs contralto – music and Bizet came up with just excellent vocals for him. All other characters act according to clearly defined schemes and patterns of a large French opera, but they are so stupid and stilted in their essence, and even multiplied by popular pseudo-Russianness, that they do not evoke any emotions. Actually, this is the reason for the complete oblivion of Ivan IV. What can not be said about our last example – “Dimitri” Dvorak.

Antonin Dvorak – photo

The composer, who welcomed and took the side of Wagner’s operatic reform, had long wanted to create something large-scale in the same style, only in Czech and for a Czech audience. His previous operas were imbued with national flavor, and he, like Bizet in his time, strove for a Wagnerian scope. Therefore, a story on a historical theme was simply necessary. And so, when Maria Chervinkova-Rigrova came to him with a libretto based on Schiller’s play Demetrius, he seized on it. Despite the success of the premiere in 1882, Dvořák remade the opera three times, strengthening the role of choirs and ensembles and saturating it with more and more Wagnerianism. The result was an excellent work, powerful and colorful, a real musical drama, which Wagner kept talking about – before us is not even an opera, but a historical canvas set to music. Dvořák was a brilliant symphonist, and when a symphonist takes on opera, something unimaginable results. You constantly catch yourself thinking that you are listening to a symphony with vocals. In fact, this is a continuation of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, since the events take place just after the death of Boris. Dvorak was certainly familiar with the masterpiece of Modest Petrovich, feeling that he had the task of creating something colossal not only in the footsteps of Wagner, but also Mussorgsky. He certainly succeeded. And it would be perfect if not for the plot.

Engraving by Emil Zillich, published in Svetozor magazine in 1883, illustrating scenes from Dvorak’s Dimitri

Of the three operas mentioned today, Dimitri looks the most plausible, although cranberries are not chewed here. This is an opera about the revolution and about the change of power, and the formation. Old Rus’ is fading into the past – the Pretender is on the throne, in which Martha Nagaya, guided by political gain, recognizes her son. Basmanov, who brought him to power, is celebrating his victory. However, married to Marina Mnishek, False Dmitry falls in love with Ksenia Godunova, who is hiding from the new Polish government. A conflict of personal happiness and public debt enters the scene, and even with cultural overtones – after all, Marina demands to baptize Rus’ into Catholicism. The impostor is torn between love for Xenia/old, traditional, independent, Orthodox Russia, and Marina/Russia for the new, pro-Western, Catholic, forced. And love by blood wins – he leans towards Xenia. Upon learning this, Marina in a rage kills her and betrays the secret of Grishka the impostor to the people. The people kill Marina, and Prince Shuisky – a fake king. Well, then he himself becomes king, but this is from another opera)).

Incredibly lyrical and heartfelt aria by Ksenia Godunova from Dimitry (probably because she was dying) performed by Russian soprano Olga Tolkmit — a fragment of a performance from the New York festival Bard Summer Scape, 2017

The plot is incredibly relevant today though historically looks absolutely cranberry. But if we put this cranberry aside, then the idea embodied by Dvořák in reworking the dramaturgy of the opera and music for it will become amazingly close to us. Probably, the Slavic soul still played a role! After all, the composer used Slavic melodies in the score, which his predecessors did not do, which is why the opera sounded completely different – hysterically or something, for real. Dimitry is by no means outdated and worthy of stage life – of the three current rarities, this is the only opera that did not go to collect dust in the archive, but was staged immediately and was a success. Only today it is almost impossible to find it on the stages of theaters. But in vain …

Very beautiful, Slavic and even Orthodox choir from “Dimitrius” performed by the Czech Academic Choir (Brno, 2016)

In Russia, during the era of the monarchy, it was forbidden to stage operas whose heroes would be representatives of the Romanov dynasty, which is why ridiculous works about Peter the Great flourished in the West.