San Francisco Classical Voice

This work would be impossible to present in a mere singers-in-front concert rendition. The title character, after all, doesn't even sing. As the spirit of the murdered Princess Mlada, ballerina Evelyn Cisneros moved sinuously and gracefully across a small, raised-platform "stage" built at the rear of the orchestra. Other forays took her into the orchestra and even into the house. The other characters (including Mlada's beloved Prince Yaromir, and the evil Princess Voislava who, with her father Prince Mstivoy, scheme to ensnare Yaromir, helped by the goddess of the Underworld, Morena) did most of their singing from this small stage.

What made all this seem natural and not contrived was the expressive stage direction of Peter McClintock, along with Val Caniparoli's choreography, Sandra Woodall's design, and Jack Carpenter's blue-red, good-and-eeeevil lighting. Woodall's "set" included a painted sun-motif extending downward from the Terrace and to either side of the raised platform. This made a perfect frame for the action, which seemed to fit very comfortably in the allotted space. The plot, such as it is, is built around huge tableaux; in a stage production one might notice that, amidst all the dancing ethnic groups and supernumeraries, the singers mostly just stand and sing. This way, the modest movements of the principals were brought into scale and focus, and assumed a dramatic power they might otherwise have lacked.

The large orchestra filled the rest of the stage — the percussionists had to haul in some of their cymbals to allow conductor Michael Tilson Thomas to enter and exit — and the chorus was arrayed in the Terrace. There they managed to function as scenery as well as actors, twinkling tiny blue penlights at one point to suggest a starry night sky.

Even the orchestra was treated as a scenic element, alternately lit and obscured (except for well-shielded stand lights). This too made sense, as the orchestra carries much of the work's substance and interest. Every coloristic detail you've heard in a piece of Russian music is there, and even a few you haven't (offstage satanic panpipes from the balcony? I thought not). That particular orientalist exoticism so popular at the time (where, one wonders, did Rimsky-Korsakov get his ideas of what Indian music sounded like?) was sprinkled liberally throughout.

There is something almost didactic in the way unique instrumental combinations are trotted out for every situation, as if one could see the bearded composer pointing to a spot in the score in the lecture hall: "note here how I have used the brittle tone of the xylophone to evoke the evil spirit of Katschei," or some such. One listener who was certainly taking notes was the young Stravinsky, for whom the third act in particular — a witches' Sabbath — was a powerful influence. The Symphony musicians delivered every brilliant stroke with gusto and obvious pleasure. Especially noteworthy were the solos of cellist Peter Wyrick, concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, and Luis Baez, master of the notoriously nasty E-flat clarinet.

One reason this work is not better known in the United States, of course, is the difficulty in assembling an entire cast of singers fluent in Russian. Happily, the Symphony's casting was very nearly spot-on. Tenor Gegam Grigorian was an outstanding Prince Yaromir, his voice possessing power without harshness even in the highest register. The same could not quite be said for soprano Ljuba Kazarnovskaya as Princess Voislava, whose top octave (including, unfortunately, most of her first scene) is marred by a double-wide vibrato. She nonetheless brought a steely focus to the music that lay a bit lower.

Bass Tigran Martirossian's Prince Mstivoy had a compelling blend of regal bearing and menace; the Morena of Susanna Poretsky had all the menace but without some of the vocal heft. Vladimir Glushchak's High Priest, and the Lumir of countertenor Brian Asawa, both impressed with their solemnity; Asawa's two appearances were particularly moving. The small roles in the crowd scenes of Act II (Susan Narucki, Datevig Yaralian, David Peters, Philip Skinner, Corey Head, Kevin Gibbs, and Mark Sullivan) were well-sung, but they were delivered in static poses bordering on hokey. The chorus switched from handmaidens to rustic traders to minions of evil and back with aplomb; such was their obvious commitment I nearly forgot they were using music.

Tilson Thomas presided with economy, to excellent effect; for all the work's color and brilliance, after all, it is singularly lacking in irony, and requires as much of a technician at the helm as a poet. It was a splendid team effort, and ever so festive.

(George Thomson is a conductor, violinist and violist, Director of the Music Conservatory, San Domenico School, living in San Rafael.)

©2002 George Thomson, all rights reserved