By Dave
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Qx8YXUSEQ
Available until: 11th December 2020
I’ve never seen The Gambler before so I’m grateful to
Opera Vision for giving me yet another opportunity to enjoy a new opera. It’s a
bit of a funny one because none of the characters seemed to be particularly
likeable apart from the little girl who was given a soft toy as a present but I
did still enjoy it.
Musically, it was a four-star opera. Conductor Modestas Pitrénas got the very best from the orchestra (who seem to be uncredited but I’m guessing it’s the Orchestra of Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet). The music is beautiful in places and extremely atmospheric in others; it captured the characters’ turbulent emotions really well and helped to make up for some of the issues with the production.
The opera was written in 1929 and is usually set in 1865 but
director Vasilij Barchatov made the decision to update it to the present day.
This means that not only are the characters in modern clothes, the gaming
tables are replaced by online gambling. It’s a very ambitious idea which had
the potential to be brilliant (and possibly is, this is just my opinion) but it
didn’t quite work for me and I’m not sure any director could make it work. It’s
about a whole group of gamblers (I’m not 100% sure who is the eponymous one – I
think most likely Polina or Alexey but there are a lot of candidates) who are
in the same area (and apparently all use the same laundrette – just one of Zinovij
Margolin’s striking sets) but the thing with online gambling is you can do it
from anywhere. You don’t have to get together with other people.
Of course, we’re focusing on other issues at the moment but
I think online gambling is a big problem in modern society. It can be done alone so you don’t need your
friends around you and it’s harder to take someone’s online access away (if you
take their phone, they can go out and buy another one) than it is to drag them
out of a casino. At one point, the wonderful character of the General’s Aunt joins
her relatives with the intention of gambling but in the age of online gambling,
there seems less need for her to come in person. If she’d sent them a text or
tweeted her intentions, it would be far more worrying to the others if she
stayed where she was as they would have to make a decision whether to go and
find her or not. But that couldn’t have happened as the libretto makes it clear
she’s there in person.
There were a lot of clever ideas, including the work of
video director 2BLCK (Maria Feodoridi
and Kirill Malovičko) but ultimately I feel the idea didn’t quite fit with the
plot or the text. However, I did like the final scene. From reading various
synopses, it seems as though Alexey is supposed to be alone on the stage at the
end but this production brought back one of the other characters. They had
nothing to sing but they did react and it all seemed so much in character for
this person to be there and in so much in keeping with the general tone of the
opera (lurching between comedy and tragedy), I do think the character’s
introduction was inspired.
The performances were excellent.
Dimitrij Golovnin was in fine voice as the beleaguered Alexey, basically
throwing his whole life away for the woman he loved. This was Polina, very
well-sung by Asmik Grigorian, though I had little idea of who she was as a
character until the end. I don’t think Alexey knew her that well either.
Inesa Linaburgytė pretty much steals
the show as the General’s Aunt, a larger-than-life character who is ridiculous
and formidable all at once. Fantastic
characterisation and she has an incredible voice too. Ieva Prudnikovaitė made
much of her role as Blanche and it’s always good to see a contralto character
who’s meant to be young and attractive. There are far too few. Vladimiras
Prdunikovas plays the role of the General and manages to be both comedic and
pathetic. As I said, they’re not the most likeable group but I did feel for the
General.
It’s musically great and the
thing about modern updates is that not everyone agrees on whether they’re
successful. It didn’t work for me but it might work for you.
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