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OPERA REVIEW
March 31, 2006
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An Operatic Smogasbord By Mark Alburger
That Helikon Opera Moscow simply sang its way through Aram Khatchaturian's Sword
Dance and a selection from Peter Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake was the clearest indication that Friday at UC Davis was not exactly your typical night at the opera. Billed as a kind of "Opera for Dummies" ("Best event if you're
interested in opera but maybe not quite ready for Der Ring des
Nibelungen"), this up-and-coming 1990s troupe delivered entertainment and
excellence throughout two dozen selections despite the lack of supertitles or much in the way of costumes, sets, and props. Given their 12-week, 50-venue U.S. tour, perhaps they can also be forgiven questionable balances (strings arranged 6/4/3/3/2 against prominent trombones) and instrumental choices (a keyboard MIDI harp for the Act III prelude from Bizet's Carmen).
Helikon was all energy and verve, right from Founder and Music Director
Dmitry Bertman's downbeat in the overture to Carmen — which almost served as a framing device, since five of the evening's 24 selections were drawn from it. Mezzo-soprano Ksenia Vyaznikova's portrayal of the title character was rich and dark, almost overly so; but this timbre was perfect for her
rendition of Azucena's song from Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore in the second half of the program. Her Carmen, in "Habanera" and the Act II quintet, was
definitely of the risqué sort, clad as she was in a vibrant red dress slit up
to her upper thigh.
Vyaznikova was joined by soprano Ekaterina Oblezova for the lilting
"Barcarole" from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman, with clever staging that consisted of little more than the two singers slowly bobbing from opposite sides of the stage and then crossing. (The singers played before the onstage orchestra throughout, with nothing more than three scrims depicting cityscapes of 19th century Europe upstage and a couple of banister rails.) Oblezova had her moment to shine as Lauretta, in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, with a performance that brought tears to the eyes from the sheer loveliness of scoring and sound.
Rather than acting as a stand-in for Luciano Pavarotti, Dmitriy Ponomarev found a lighter delivery in the Verdi Rigoletto Duke's song, an approach that came to fruition in a hilarious rendition of Agust“n Lara's Granada, with the tenor transformed into a song-and-dance man. With lighthearted tenor and compatriot Mikhail Serychev, he delivered the goods as well in Luigi Denza's Funiculi, Funicula (billed as "On the Swing" in the playlist). Anna Crechishkina (or is it Greschishkina? The program consistently gives the first, and the biography the second — love those Cyrillic transliterations!) and Igor Tarasov were similarly delightful in the soprano-baritone Papagena-Papageno duet from Mozart's The Magic Flute, with yet a little more heft than in the Peter Shaffer movie. Tarasov returned as a triumphant Toreador for Carmen, but with enough grace that this could have been the Brokeback Mountain version. The finale drinking song from Verdi's La Traviata served as a frothy coda, with a fine 16-voice chorus and assembled soloists (including Sergey Kostyuk) as the toast of the town. One of the encores recapitulated this number, and the conductor himself started dancing with the singers, leaving the orchestra to their own capable devices. It was that kind of poppingly effervescent night.
(Mark Alburger is an award-winning ASCAP composer of concert music published by New Music, editor-publisher of 21st-Century Music Journal, oboist, pianist, vocalist, and music critic.)
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