– Russian singer, which has been applauded by the whole world for many years now, performed for the first time at the Bolshoi Theater. The performer chose the piece for her debut on the most famous stage in the country herself, appearing before the public in the title role in “”. This wonderful opera by G. Puccini had not been staged before at the Bolshoi Theater, but it occupies a special place in her life: while performing it at the Rome Opera, she met Yusif Eyvazov, who later became her husband. In the Bolshoi Theater performance, this singer performed the role of the Chevalier de Grieux. Equally wonderful performers performed in other roles: Lesko - Elchin Azizov, Geront - Alexander Naumenko, Marat Gali - Dance Teacher, Yulia Mazurova - Singer.
One of the main difficulties of the role of Manon Lescaut is the contradiction between the heroine’s youth and the vocal part, which requires a strong voice and considerable experience. Both appear in singers at a fairly mature age. She has these qualities - the artist delighted the audience with the richness of all registers, the richness of timbre colors, the subtlety of nuance and phrasing, and an experienced singer allows her to look convincing in the image of a young girl. amazing plastic. Having initially appeared very young - half a child, in the second act the heroine already looks like a seductive young woman, but as soon as her lover appears - and again in all her movements the features of a girl appear, so spontaneous in the sincerity of her feelings. 39-year-old Yu. Eyvazov looks just as convincing in the role of an impetuous young man in love. True, the singer’s voice did not always sound smooth, although on the whole the performer coped with the part.
Manon Lescaut - Anna Netrebko. Chevalier des Grieux - Yusif Eyvazov. Photo by Damir Yusupov
The performance was conducted by Yader Binyamini. The conductor's work made a pleasant impression on both the audience and the audience, who believe that singing with an orchestra under his direction is very convenient. The orchestra, choir and soloists' voices sounded balanced and clear, delighting listeners with the richness and subtlety of nuances. The cello solo was beautifully performed by B. Lifanovsky. The choreographic scenes staged by Tatyana Baganova looked very elegant.
The weak point of the play "" turned out to be the direction. Director Adolf Shapiro - like - is collaborating with the Bolshoi Theater for the first time, but - unlike the singer - he showed himself not with the best side. The director’s idea in itself is not bad: to emphasize in the image of the heroine the features of a girl who has not completely left childhood and has found herself in a cruel “adult” world, where she can be used as a toy. But instead of psychologically working out the role with the performer, the director is carried away by demonstrating symbols - such as, for example, a doll in the hands of Manon, dressed in the same dress and hat as the heroine herself. Carried away by such external attributes, the director seems to forget about the performers - and as a result, Manon looks somewhat cold. But she knows how to create such lively, emotional images on stage - just remember her Natasha Rostova! One can only regret that the director ignored this side of her talent. In some moments of the performance, the director reaches outright surrealism, completely out of harmony with G. Puccini’s music: a giant doll with a rotating head and moving eyes in the second act, a “freak show” in the third act, more appropriate in a circus than in an opera house...
Despite such directorial mistakes, the debut at the Bolshoi Theater can be considered successful. I would like to believe that the singer’s first role on main stage Russia will not be the last, and the audience of the Bolshoi Theater will discover new facets of its talent.
Lolita-Netrebko creates with her entire adult being a carefree image of youth
It should be noted that Anna Netrebko’s repertoire includes both Maidens Manon: she performed the French one in Vienna, Los Angeles, and Berlin, and learned the Italian one together with Yusif Eyvazov at the Rome Opera under the direction of Riccardo Muti. This year the couple performed "Manon Lescaut" in Salzburg in a concert version. And the fact that on the Bolshoi stage they appeared as a united duet of Manon and des Grieux, feeling all the musical nuances, articulations and veristic details of Puccini’s score, was obvious from the very first notes. It was this solid vocal ground that gave the premiere that high musical degree, which at first seemed unattainable. Extremely interesting in a textural sense, the work of conductor Yader Binyamini, who managed to “lighten” Puccini’s heavy orchestral mass, let the light timbres of wood and violins play, bring to the surface the grace of madrigals and baroque minuets, referring to the love bucolic of courtly times, and then - the hysterical expression of verism , without cheap melodrama. But all these advantages of orchestral work were not revealed immediately. At first, the sound of the orchestra seemed dull, the choirs diverged from the orchestra, the vocal parts died out somewhere in the depths of the stage. As the performance progressed, the musical picture gradually leveled off, filling the finale with the heroine dying in the desert with a luxurious sound picture, pulsating with the mournful roar of timpani. And what is significant is that Puccini’s orchestral gigantism under the direction of Bignamini did not absorb a single aria in the performance, remaining all the time intelligible and balanced in sound.
According to the director's decision of Adolf Shapiro, all the intermezzos of the orchestra were accompanied in the performance by on-screen writings, which were connected on stage through the letters of des Grieux's diary running on the screen different worlds: archetypal (memory) and sensual, ecstatic. The performance itself turned out to be overflowing with conventional, metaphorical images: a white “toy” model of an unknown city, among the roofs and walls of which people moved along the “Lilliputian” streets strange creatures in clothes of an outlandish cut, combining red and green colors, vintage trousers and sneakers. Instead of the sun, paper flew over the roofs balloon. This is the world of childhood - a carefree Eden, among whose inhabitants there were Puccini's heroes - Manon-Netrebko in a white knitted hat, a nymphet with a doll in her hands, and the romantic de Grieux-Eyvazov. The tenor stretched out every sound from the first note, giving meaning to every word that turned out for him fatal love. Lolita-Netrebko “fluttered” around the stage, creating a carefree image of youth with her entire adult being. A fast-paced “card” game between brother Manon (Elchin Azizov), reminiscent of Mephistopheles, and old Geront (Alexander Naumenko) fit into the general metaphorism of the performance.
The nymphet that the old man inherited ended up in a doll world, where she herself is a “doll.” Her giant “double” - a doll under the grate - is another metaphor for the performance. Now no longer carefree, but in the image of "La Traviata" - Manon is bored among the giant bead-balls with the most different ways: puts on whitewash and lipstick, dances with the extravagant Dance Teacher (Marat Gali), dressed in a tutu, sings her aria, balancing like an acrobat on a ball. The doll blinks. And it seems that Puccini’s opera is hopelessly bogged down in the inanimate metaphorical language of the performance - in these conventional spaces of models, balls, triangles. But Eyvazov-de Grieux appears on stage, and Netrebko’s heroine “comes to life” in duets with him, although their love scenes are full not of the usual operatic fervor, but of inner ecstasy. They sing slowly, stretching out the words almost letter by letter, sometimes forcing the sound, but they ensure that emotion is gradually included in the performance. The stage space is freed up: in the third act, only the hatch remains on the stage, from which the exhausted prisoner Manon is pulled out in a shabby “Traviata” dress, and a paper boat - an image of hope for a return to the lost Eden. The finale of the play is an empty box of the stage, slowly filling with blackness - Manon's impending death. And here suddenly the heights to which Puccini’s opera strives were revealed: love and death, as a whole, as a trance, as the impossibility of being without each other. Only two sing - Netrebko and Eyvazov, in a frenzy of what is happening. Manon is slowly dying: the letters on the screen spread ink, her voice records every moment of this horror - impending death, cold, darkness. The dramaturgy of the scene is built as an affect of death and love, and every note here sounds like a cry - from both Manon and des Grieux. The director left them together, on one side of the curtain, metaphorically separating the eternal from the mortal.
This is an event that has been awaited for a very long time. Because of the appearance of Anna Netrebko, the excitement around the premiere went off scale. The price for a ticket from speculators reached 150 thousand rubles. And in the theater itself they were more excited than ever. But all work stopped when, during breaks in rehearsals, Anna talked with colleagues and friends in the atrium of the theater. And in the service buffet, where you can go through the atrium, food was running out and there was no time to boil water for tea and coffee, since almost all the employees rushed there to get at least a glimpse of the opera diva, and if they were lucky, to take a photo with her: Anna behaved easily and friendly in the theater...
Meeting such an extraordinary level of enthusiastic expectations is an incredibly difficult task. But not for Anna Netrebko. From the moment she appears on stage, nothing that happens around her matters. Her naturalness, phenomenal beauty and sensuality of her voice are absolutely magnetic. Manon leaving her lover for a wealthy patron is a betrayal. Manon realizes that money is not the same as happiness, and returns to her beloved - this is forgiveness. He goes into exile after her - this is love. And in the case of Manon - Anna Netrebko, this is not just a performance based on an 18th-century love story described in a novel by Abbot Prevost, who inspired the creation of the opera not only by the Italian Puccini, but also by the Frenchman Massenet. This is a unique work of art that changes the soul of everyone in the room.
The presence of everyone else on stage next to such talent seems like a formality. Although among the soloists there are also quality works (Lesko - Elchin Azizov, Dance Teacher - Marat Gali, Singer - Yulia Mazurova). The only one who lives on stage in the wake of his Manon is her des Grieux - Yusif Eyvazov. Perhaps because this opera became the beginning of his personal life with Anna romantic story. They met in February 2014 at a production of Manon Lescaut in Rome. This was the first collaboration. And already in December last year they became husband and wife. And each of their arias and each duet was filled with sincere passion.
And only when you get to the second cast (Manon Lescaut - Spaniard Ainoa Arteta, Cavalier des Grieux - Italian Riccardo Massi) of the premiere episode, you return to the modest reality of the Bolshoi Theater. There is no truth in the relationship between them, but there is a lot of false musicianship - broken notes and discrepancies with the orchestra. The orchestra under the baton of the young Italian Yadera Bignamini sounds rough, loud and dispassionate.
The production by director Adolf Shapiro and artist Maria Tregubova looks just as insensitive. It is a collection of quotes from various plays, films and masterpieces of painting. The spectacle turns out to be deaf to Puccini's music. In this performance, Manon is a nymphet, first playing with dolls, and then herself turning into a huge monstrous baby doll, which occupies a third of the stage.
But after the intermission, the director, like a child, forgets a boring toy, he forgets about his “dolls” and turns the finale of the play into a concert.
AND main question only one: will Anna Netrebko return to the Bolshoi Theater for the sake of her Manon? Or, perhaps, for the sake of Lisa in “The Queen of Spades”, the premiere of which on the Bolshoi stage staged by Rimas Tuminas is planned in a season.
If we talk about opera premieres this season, it is obvious that they will remain without audience excitement. We're not talking about hit titles at all. The next premiere is scheduled for November - Britten's rarely performed opera Billy Budd. This is a joint work with the English national opera. Another rare premiere is Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s opera “The Idiot” based on Dostoevsky’s novel of the same name. It will be presented on February 12. The season will conclude with the premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Snow Maiden” in June. In addition, in a concert performance by the artists of the Youth opera program, one of the most successful projects Bolshoi, Rossini’s “Journey to Reims” will be performed.
The only show this season that should be of interest is Verdi's Don Carlos, when Khibla Gerzmava, Ildar Abdrazakov and Dmitry Hvorostovsky make their Bolshoi Theater debuts in two December performances.
It seems that the Bolshoi Theater has finally decided to invite stars of the first magnitude, which, of course, will increase the interest of an enlightened audience, and not just tourists - lovers of selfies and buffets. But only if super singers become regular guests at the Bolshoi Theater. Anna Netrebko set the bar as high as possible.
Maria Babalova -
especially for Novaya
The long-awaited event finally happened: the main Russian singer sang in the main Russian opera house. And she not only sang, but also acted in a full-fledged production. The Bolshoi staged an opera of her choice especially for Anna Netrebko - Puccini's Manon Lescaut. These are her current preferences. The singer, who once shone in frivolous soubrette roles for light soprano, now more interesting repertoire more respectable weight category. She is not afraid of a large orchestra, low register, or exhausting distances. From Mozart she purposefully moves towards Wagner and Italian verismo, one of best exhibits which is Manon Lescaut (1893; not to be confused with Massenet's French Manon, written just a few years earlier).
Another new circumstance is the tenor husband, very vocal, suitable for the role of des Grieux. So the couple prefers not to separate, if possible. And the Bolshoi Theater, of course, provided it to them. For Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov, “Manon Lescaut” is painted in additional romantic tones - it was while playing the roles of passionate but unhappy lovers on the stage of the Rome Opera a couple of years ago that they happily found each other in real life.
So, for a complete set, we also need a conductor who is attentive to the voices of the main newsmakers who are adapting for the first time to the vast space of the Historical Stage. There is such a person - the young Italian Yader Binyamini, invited by Netrebko herself. The soloists can be heard, and local singers sound confidently next to the distinguished guests, especially those performing the parts of the villains: the rich old voluptuous Geront (Alexander Naumenko) and Manon’s cynical brother, Sergeant Lesko (Elchin Azizov). The choir was less fortunate - its replicas do not always catch up with the overly lively orchestra. Lack of accuracy, however, is compensated by temperament. After the Intermezzo at the beginning of the third act, the famous symphonic sketch depicting des Grieux's longing for the arrested Manon, the maestro ceremoniously raises the orchestra in the pit to bow.
Well, you also need to choose the right production team. It cannot be said that Netrebko is a conservative who wants to stand like a bollard in the middle of the stage and care only about her voice. Not at all, she can be a very expressive actress. But it doesn’t cost her anything to rebel if something goes against her grain. Don’t forget the diva’s spat with the German master Hans Neuenfels in Bavarian Opera during the production of the same “Manon Lescaut”, as a result of which two weeks before the premiere it was necessary to urgently look for a replacement for her. I must say, alternative sweet couple for this opera there are now in the world - Christina Opolais and Jonas Kaufman - and she is able to set the stage on stage no worse than our royal spouses.
The Bolshoi Theater invited the famous drama director Adolf Shapiro, in Lately who began working in opera and already had experience communicating with prima donnas: his first opera production, which received “ Golden mask“He did “Lucia di Lammermoor” with Khibla Gerzmava.
The four very conventional spaces in which the plot unfolds - the peaked city of Amiens, a rich house in Paris, a port in Le Havre and some completely mysterious America - are practically not connected with each other. They are connected only by excerpts from the corresponding novel by Abbé Prevost that are displayed on a black curtain (during a change of scenery) - too long. But the pictures that appear after the curtain rises (the author of the sets and countless costumes is Maria Tregubova, the choreographer is Tatyana Baganova) reward the audience in full, delicately combining glamor, entertainment and pleasant optionality.
Damir Yusupov / Bolshoi Theater
What is there? The lovers fly in a hot air balloon to Paris and sail on an ice floe to America. Among Manon's prison companions are a bodybuilder, a transvestite, a black woman in a wedding dress, a fat woman, a dwarf, and a snake woman. The white paper town of Amiens and the white paper boat in Le Havre are contrasted with the black kingdom of Paris luxurious life Manon, in the center of which there is a huge, slightly inclined mirror, reflecting the stage, the conductor's pit and even the first rows of the stalls. At the moment when Manon remembers the poor student des Grieux, whom she abandoned for this black boudoir, the mirror (thanks to modern scenographic miracles) ceases to be a mirror, and a piece of lost happiness shines through it. In combination with the more serious Netrebko, who instantly transforms from a doll, bitch and girlfriend of Offenbach’s Olympia into a suffering woman, this scene turns out to be very effective.
Next to the mirror is another symbol: a monstrous doll that has grown from the one that was in the hands of Manon at the time of her first appearance. She blinks her eyes frighteningly, moves her arms and is gradually covered in monstrous flies, replacing innocent cosmetic flies.
Damir Yusupov / Bolshoi Theater
The world of evil toys, painful buffoonery and bizarre fantasies suddenly ends in the last, fourth, “American” act, which outweighs everything that came before. This is, in fact, a farewell to Manon, who is dying in the arms of des Grieux; here she is not even Olympia’s friend, but the granddaughter of Wagner’s Isolde. A couple in plain black clothes stands in the middle of the stage and sings about suffering, gradually moving closer and closer to the viewer. There is no America and no scenery at all. Only a huge empty cube, along the walls of which Manon’s just written sobbing lines flow endlessly. That's all. The diva played in the performance, now she can conquer the audience with just her voice, intonation, and turn of her head. And she does it.
The first opera premiere of the Bolshoi Theater this season can hardly be called an ordinary event. It's more like a meeting of top officials. Let's assume that the meeting was successful.
The premiere was a triumph
The stalls and five gilded tiers of the Bolshoi Theater stand and shout. This is the finale of the long-awaited premiere on the historical stage of Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut. The production by theater director Adolf Shapiro largely rehabilitated the risky project of the BT directorate, which had invited drama masters to the productions for the last two seasons. With details from the main musical theater countries - MK columnist.
There haven’t been a single ticket on the Bolshoi website for a long time - after all main party Anna Netrebko sings, and even with her new husband Yusif Eyvazov. However, on the way to the historical stage, right on the corner of Novaya, a man whom appearance in life they define the most ordinary hanyga, asks me: “Do you need tickets?” - “How much do you charge?” - “There are three good ones” - “Really on the ground?” “The resellers have everything,” he firmly confirms, intending to take me to these same resellers. The topic of speculation in scarce tickets is interesting in itself, but not at the right time - in 20 minutes the start of the very premiere that has been awaited in Moscow for a long time. And which was not in the plans of the Big One, but, obviously, whatever God wants happens in spite of everything and in spite of everything. Even in the Bolshoi.
Adolf Shapiro, a director with great, dare I say it, world authority, went to see the prima donna in Vienna and told me after the premiere that quite quickly they found mutual language and what's in the works opera diva was an amazing partner. And I remembered one of her first roles in the Leningrad MALEGOT (now Mikhailovsky Theater) - Suzanne in “The Marriage of Figaro”: a little-known artist, thin, pure soprano, incredibly artistic - which made her stand out from the entire operatic cast. It must be said that Netrebko practically did not change during the perestroika period - except that she gained physical weight. There’s nothing to say about the world - opera houses patiently stand in line behind her.
But then the third call, the boxes were so packed that people were standing in them. During the overture (conducted by Yader Binyamini), white handwritten lines run across the hard black curtain: “Today we must say only what is appropriate today. Put everything else aside and say it at the appropriate time.” This is a quotation from the forewarning of the author of “Notes of a Noble Person”, which opens the novel by Abbé Prevost “The History of the Chevalier de Grieux and Manon Lescaut” - from which Giacomo Puccini made his four-act opera with great music. A well-dressed opera audience more than once in three years extra hours V literally will read on the hard black curtain the story of the fatal passion of the beautiful Manon and her gentleman. And this text on behalf of the latter will serve as navigation in the stormy sea of events.
But then the black curtain creeps up, revealing a city as clear as the first snow. "Oh!" - the audience exhales, looking at the model of white houses, pressed closely together on crooked streets. It was as if some skilled modeler had just cut it out and gone, say, for a smoke, leaving huge scissors, a pencil, and a compass around the edges. He left it a little carelessly, raising it at an angle to the proscenium by forty-five degrees. And brightly dressed people are already inhabiting it: red, green dots in sweaters and knitted hats - just a ski resort, over which a hot air balloon with passengers floats three times, increasing its proportions three times. And when he becomes life size, a well-dressed gentleman and a black-haired beauty in a white sweater, a hat with a pompom and a doll that looks exactly like her will come out of it. This is how the artist Maria Tregubova, the strongest and brightest in the generation of thirty-year-olds, begins to surprise.
Together with director Shapiro, she builds the first act entirely in white tones, into which black will slowly and imperceptibly creep in. But for now, the triumph of white is the bright meeting of the beautiful Manon with the poor student des Grieux. His first aria ends with shouts of “bravi!” from the audience, and so it will continue - almost every aria or duet is accompanied by long “braves!”
Anna Netrebko and Vladimir Urin
There is something to be said: the orchestra sounds powerful, not only the Netrebko and Eyvazov spouses sing superbly, but also Alexander Naumenko, Elchin Azizov, Yulia Mazurova... The scenery is applauded, especially the second act, which represents the Parisian house of Manon - this is a masterpiece of scenography and directorial decisions. Moreover, I observe that unique union of director and artist, when it is difficult to even guess who is dictating to whom - everything is so natural. This is how the second act is resolved: on the right sits a huge Manon, probably seven meters tall - this is a doll in a black silk dress with white beads around her neck. Nearby, slightly in the background, is a huge oval mirror, which, trembling as if in a chill, reflects what is happening on stage. And on stage, in a ray of light, is the luxurious Manon, literally in turmoil: poverty is a bad treasurer for her, and there is no love in luxury. The rich husband tries his best to entertain the beauty, providing her with all sorts of entertainment in the form of singing and dancing comedians, acrobats - nothing pleases the heart of the beauty prone to treason. Betrayal happens right at the feet of Netrebko the doll, on whose snow-white plastic black spiders, ants and other plastic evil spirits crawl. These are jewels that she cannot part with, while wanting true love.
This plastic miracle inspires disastrous delight, which also moves its arms and eyes. The dramaturgy of the puppet’s reactions is strictly calculated: she shyly closes her eyes to her lovers’ embrace. He turns his head at the snow-white city of their first love, reflected for a moment in the mirror, and looks with longing as if it were an irrevocable past. And in panic, he moves his hands chaotically when the lovers, on the orders of the husband, are seized by the police and thrown into different prisons.
Who made such a miracle? Abroad? It turns out, no - our craftsmen did it in St. Petersburg, and the doll turned out to be very functional and can be disassembled, which allows you to quickly change the decoration.
One can only admire the subtle stylistic work of the director and artist, who managed to make the opera dynamically intense. Black and white color, which is decomposed by Damir Ismagilov’s light into many shades, gives this dynamics. From the luminous transparency of the white of the first two acts to the dull, hopeless blackness of the last two. The white scenographic fantasy is aggressively absorbed by ascetic blackness. And also in the game - from white to black. Although in the third act a parade of characters from a correctional prison unexpectedly crashes into the black and white palette - in colorful, glamorous fashion.
In the last act, the heroes find themselves in an empty stage box - black scenes with a white backdrop, and he, like a ghost of hope, on which their dialogue is written in black ink in an oblique hand. The lines are filled with invisible tears, causing the letters to merge, the dark spots from them grow, slowly unite into blots, until on the proscenium last love Manon and des Grieux mourn: “Dark... Alone... No one around... Scary...”, etc. Repeated “scary” words merge into inky mud.
Standing motionless on the proscenium, the singers in no way pretend to leave. The director deprived them of any visible support - no scenery, no mimance. Only Puccini's music and dramatic acting. But what! How delightful it is in Anna Netrebko, how sincere in Yusif Eyvazov! Shapiro's concept is the absence of any complicated concept, and it produces an incredible effect. During bows, the Bolshoi Theater does not encore, it simply screams - all five tiers merge in a single cry with the stalls and do not let the artists go for a long time. By the way, there were more than a hundred of them on stage bowing.
