Big premiere at the Bolshoi. The famous opera by Giacomo Puccini "Manon Lescaut" is on the main stage of the country. The first parts will be performed by the inimitable Anna Netrebko and her husband and partner Yusif Eyvazov.
A black formal suit, but a soft charming smile on her face: Anna Netrebko went out to the press in a good mood. After all, at the Bolshoi she sings the premiere of Puccini's favorite opera Manon Lescaut.
“I perform it with great happiness and delight every time, and even more so when I have such a wonderful, strong and passionate partner with me,” says the singer.
At the table he sits nearby, on the stage he sings nearby, in life he walks nearby. After all, this is her husband, Yusif Eyvazov, the performer of the main male part - the cavalier de Grieux.
For Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov this opera is special. The fact is that they met two years ago at a rehearsal of Manon Lescaut in Rome. The love story of the 18th century was the beginning of modern romantic history. It was the first joint work - an opera saturated with passion and despair, where every word is about love. Cavalier de Grieux, aka Yusif Eyvazov, then discovered Manon Lescaut, aka Anna Netrebko, both as a singer and as a woman.
“I knew that she sang a certain repertoire, light enough, which I don't sing. Therefore, of particular interest in her - I knew that there was such a star, a singer, and so on ... But this acquaintance turned into love. And we are very happy!” - says the singer.
Their duet does not play passion, he experiences it. When Manon abandons her beloved for the sake of a rich patron, this is a betrayal. When Manon realizes that the money did not bring her happiness, and returns - this is forgiveness. When he goes into exile for her, this is love.
This production has already been dubbed a bit "hooligan". Here are the costumes of the heroes - long dresses and frock coats in the fashion of the 19th century, and at the same time - sneakers, knitted hats and black glasses. And the soloist of the Bolshoi Marat Gali came out to sing on his native stage in a ballet tutu! In this production, he is a dance teacher.
“All my life I wanted to feel like a ballet dancer, and now, after 14 years of a career at the Bolshoi Theater, I finally go out in a tutu. It is very pleasant and easy for me!” - the singer laughs.
Anna Netrebko, apparently, feels the same way: in the same scene with a dance teacher, she stands on a ball without any insurance and sings at the same time!
“When we did this scene with Anna, this moment of risk came from her: “I can try to be on the ball!” But in general, an idea that is not directly related - a girl on a ball - it is present, ”says choreographer Tatyana Baganova.
And all this is imperturbably observed by a six-meter doll. This is both a symbol of luxury - Manon really wanted expensive toys for herself - and, in part, the heroine herself. The image of a "doll with a doll" becomes a farce.
“Such a live stream, young, modern in it. Especially in the first act, she somehow lifts the mood a little before lowering it completely into a complete drama, ”says Anna Netrebko.
But still, the costumes, the scenery - just the surroundings. The immortal music of Puccini reigns over everything. And the performers of the main roles prefer not to think about the upcoming premiere in order to reduce the degree of excitement.
“If someone tells you that the singer does not worry before singing “Manon Lescaut” - do not believe it! Everyone is worried,” says Yusif Eyvazov.
“I don’t know… I’ll wake up the day after tomorrow and we’ll see!” - says Anna Netrebko.
Lolita-Netrebko creates with all her adult being a carefree image of youth
It should be noted that Anna Netrebko's repertoire includes both girls Manon: she performed French in Vienna, Los Angeles, Berlin, learned Italian 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 stage of the Bolshoi they appeared as a soldered duet of Manon and de 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. An extremely texturally interesting work by conductor Yader Binjamini, who managed to "brighten" the heavy Puccini orchestral array, let the light timbres of wood and violins play, bring to the surface the elegance of madrigals and baroque minuets, referring to the love bucolic of courtly times, and right there - the hysterical expression of verismo without cheap melodrama. But all these advantages of orchestral work were not immediately discovered. At first, the sound of the orchestra seemed dull, the choirs diverged from the orchestra, the vocal parts went out somewhere in the back of the stage. In the course of the performance, the musical picture gradually leveled off, filling the finale with the heroine dying in the desert with a luxurious sound picture, pulsing with the mournful roar of the timpani. And what is significant - Puccini's orchestral gigantism under the direction of Biniamini 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 screen writings, through the letters of de Grieux's diary running on the screen, connecting different worlds on the stage: archetypal (memory) and sensual, ecstatic. The performance itself turned out to be overflowing with conditional, metaphorical images: a white "toy" model of an unknown city, among the roofs and walls of which strange creatures in clothes of outlandish cut, combining red and green colors, old knickers and sneakers moved along the "Lilliputian" streets. Instead of the sun, a paper balloon flew over the rooftops. This is the world of childhood - a carefree Eden, among whose inhabitants Puccini's heroes appeared - Manon-Netrebko in a white knitted hat, a nymphet with a doll in her hands, and romantic de Grieux-Eyvazov. From the first note, the tenor stretched out every sound, giving meaning to every word, which turned out to be fatal love for him. Lolita-Netrebko "fluttered" around the stage, creating a carefree image of youth with her adult being. The rapid "card" game between brother Manon (Elchin Azizov), reminiscent of Mephistopheles, and Geront the old man (Alexander Naumenko) fit into the general metaphorism of the performance.
The nymphet, inherited by the old man, got into the puppet world, where she herself is a "doll". Her giant "double" - a doll under the grate - is another metaphor for the play. Now she is no longer carefree, but in the form of a "traviata" - Manon is bored among the giant beads-balls in a variety of ways: she puts on white and lipstick, dances with an extravagant Dance Teacher (Marat Gali), dressed in a ballet tutu, sings her aria, balancing like acrobat, on the 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 conditional spaces of models, balls, triangles. But Eyvazov-de Grieux appears on the stage, and Netrebko's heroine in duets with him "comes to life", 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 achieve that emotion gradually turns on in the performance. The stage space is freed: in the third act, only the hatch remains on the stage, from which the exhausted prisoner Manon is pulled out in a shabby "Traviatian" dress, and a paper boat - an image of hope for returning to the lost Eden. The finale of the performance is an empty box of the stage, slowly filling with blackness - Manon's impending death. And here the height to which Puccini's opera aspires was suddenly 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 slowly dies: the letters on the screen spread ink, her voice captures every moment of this horror - impending death, cold, darkness. The dramaturgy of the scene is built as an affect of death and love, and each note here sounds like a cry - both Manon and de Grieux. The director left them together, on one side of the curtain, metaphorically separating the eternal from the mortal.
At the Bolshoi Theater - a grandiose premiere, the famous opera by Puccini "Manon Lescaut". The inimitable Anna Netrebko will make her debut in the title role on the Historical Stage. Together with her husband and partner Yusif Eyvazov. The innovation of the production is such that it is already called "hooligan", and the costumes and scenery can shock.
A black formal suit, but a soft charming smile on her face: Anna Netrebko went out to the press in a good mood. After all, at the Bolshoi she sings the premiere of Puccini's favorite opera Manon Lescaut.
“I perform it with great happiness and delight every time, and even more so when I have such a wonderful, strong and passionate partner with me,” says the singer.
At the table he sits nearby, on the stage he sings nearby, in life he walks nearby. After all, this is her husband, Yusif Eyvazov, the performer of the main male part - the cavalier de Grieux.
For Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov this opera is special. The fact is that they met two years ago at a rehearsal of Manon Lescaut in Rome. The love story of the 18th century was the beginning of modern romantic history. It was the first joint work - an opera saturated with passion and despair, where every word is about love. Cavalier de Grieux, aka Yusif Eyvazov, then discovered Manon Lescaut, aka Anna Netrebko, both as a singer and as a woman.
“I knew that she sang a certain repertoire, light enough, which I don't sing. Therefore, of particular interest in her - I knew that there was such a star, a singer, and so on ... But this acquaintance turned into love. And we are very happy!” - says the singer.
Their duet does not play passion, he experiences it. When Manon abandons her beloved for the sake of a rich patron, this is a betrayal. When Manon realizes that the money did not bring her happiness, and returns - this is forgiveness. When he goes into exile for her, this is love.
This production has already been dubbed a bit "hooligan". Here are the costumes of the heroes - long dresses and frock coats in the fashion of the 19th century, and at the same time - sneakers, knitted hats and black glasses. And the soloist of the Bolshoi Marat Gali came out to sing on his native stage in a ballet tutu! In this production, he is a dance teacher.
“All my life I wanted to feel like a ballet dancer, and now, after 14 years of a career at the Bolshoi Theater, I finally go out in a tutu. It is very pleasant and easy for me!” - the singer laughs.
Anna Netrebko, apparently, feels the same way: in the same scene with a dance teacher, she stands on a ball without any insurance and sings at the same time!
“When we did this scene with Anna, this moment of risk came from her: “I can try to be on the ball!” But in general, an idea that is not directly related - a girl on a ball - it is present, ”says choreographer Tatyana Baganova.
And all this is imperturbably observed by a six-meter doll. This is both a symbol of luxury - Manon really wanted expensive toys for herself - and, in part, the heroine herself. The image of a "doll with a doll" becomes a farce.
“Such a live stream, young, modern in it. Especially in the first act, she somehow lifts the mood a little before lowering it completely into a complete drama, ”says Anna Netrebko.
But still, the costumes, the scenery - just the surroundings. The immortal music of Puccini reigns over everything. And the performers of the main roles prefer not to think about the upcoming premiere in order to reduce the degree of excitement.
“If someone tells you that the singer does not worry before singing “Manon Lescaut” - do not believe it! Everyone is worried,” says Yusif Eyvazov.
“I don’t know… I’ll wake up the day after tomorrow and we’ll see!” - says Anna Netrebko.
Anna Netrebko. Photo - Damir Yusupov
The performance of "Manon Lescaut" by Puccini was not planned a year ago. But the directorate managed to get Anna Netrebko's consent to sing at the Bolshoi Theater with her husband, tenor Yusif Eyvazov.
The name was simply chosen. Music, not to mention the plot, attracts with passionate drama. And it was at this opera in Rome that Netrebko met her future husband, she sang Manon, and the part of de Grieux is suitable for his type of voice.
With the schedule of the prima donna scheduled for years ahead, it was more difficult to agree on the timing and name of the director. Netrebko, who is not distinguished by particular conservatism, at the same time does not belong to the number of singers who are ready to sing in any avant-garde production.
The singer has repeatedly said in an interview that she should be comfortable on stage. In every sense - both vocally and conceptually. Drama director Adolf Shapiro proposed a theatrical solution that suited everyone. Even before the first show, Netrebko said how much she and Eyvazov liked this production.
For Shapiro, this is a debut at the Bolshoi Theater, but not at the opera. He, in particular, made a successful "Lucia di Lammermoor" at the Musical Theater, and the then director of the theater Vladimir Urin remembered this. By inviting Shapiro to the Bolshoi, Urin again did not fail. The director, according to him, from childhood loved Prevost's novel "Manon Lescaut", considers Puccini's music wonderful, and cooperation with Netrebko and Eyvazov - creative success.
Strictly speaking, the operatic Manon can be shown in two ways: as an innocence who quickly gained experience, or as an experienced person from the very beginning. The heroine Puccini, recalling abandoned love, first of all speaks not of high matters, but of hot kisses, which she lacks from a rich patron.
Shapiro, drawing the image of Manon, went his own way. He and stage designer Maria Tregubova seem to have captured someone's dream of passion - probably, he dreamed of de Grie after the death of his beloved woman.
And further. For Shapiro and the stage designer, it doesn't matter where Manon comes from and when she lived. Most importantly, she is an attractive woman who makes men dizzy. Shapiro staged an opera buffoonery about mirages. And the good intentions the road is paved with. And love, which seemed like a Christmas fairy tale, mercilessly breaks fate, making a nice young man the hero of gambling houses, and a nice girl - a prisoner of the moment.
The performance will begin in the bowels of a white "paper" town with small houses below human height, standing on an inclined podium. A kind of man-made paradise, created here by a giant pencil and scissors lying here. A balloon flies across the sky, it is on it that the heroes will run away to their nest. Funny creatures resembling gnomes (choreography) roam and dance along the streets of utopia (choreography by Tatyana Baganova). He sings about the "hour of fantasies and hopes."
The Cavalier de Grieux, in a romantic long scarf, is looking for a face that he can admire forever. A doll named Manon will appear in the doll town. White dress, socks, habit, gestures - everything she has is a toy, even a little awkward. In the hands of a doll is also a doll. A girl with a perfect face played in childhood.
The apotheosis of scenography - and the "doll with a doll" technique - will come later, when Manon, who has not matured in the patron's house, only stunned from the wealth that has fallen on her, dies of boredom. The doll sitting on the stage, blinking, moving its head and hands, grows to a gigantic size of several meters, symbolizing fatal immaturity. In this episode, everything is exaggerated, brought to hyperbole.
Even a large “magic” mirror on the back, which reflects the stage and part of the orchestra, and sometimes the thoughts of Manon, remembering de Grie.
Quite a mocking farce - a scene with a minuet. When Manon sings about flies, "murderous and voluptuous" that she needs to stick on her face, the servants bring out hefty grasshoppers, dragonflies and flies. And they cover the physiognomy and limbs of a giant doll with them.
When the old patron Geronte, who looks like a devil dressed in furs and black, invites a dance teacher (in a ballet women's "tutu") to a simple mistress, Manon, putting a powdered wig on his head, learns to dance, deliberately balancing on a ball (black and the white balls on the floor are her scattered "jewels"). And no traditional opera declaration with gestures. On the contrary, minimalism. Even in the desperate duet of Manon's forgiveness, which she begs from de Grieux. Even at the time of her arrest.
Puppetry is growing for the time being. And then it breaks down. In the scene of sailing to America, Manon is no longer a doll, but not yet quite a person. The farce is half replaced by drama, although those who see off the ship with the exiles look like vile onlookers, savoring de Grieux's despair, like the audience in a movie theater on a Hollywood melodrama. And the exiles crawling out of the prison hatch for roll call are not only women of easy virtue, but people who are somehow different from others. Growth, figure, clothes, behavior. Unlike the self-satisfied majority, from which the convicts and the gentleman sail on a paper boat.
The operatic story of Manon, torn in time, presented, as in the novel, on behalf of de Grieux, contains temporary gaps between actions. For example, after the meeting of the heroes and an episode in the house of a rich lover, to whom Manon went, a picture of happiness in Paris is missing. She is only remembered with bitterness.
Shapiro found a way out for those who have not read the novel: while the scenery is being changed (or with orchestral intermezzos), running lines of a man's confession appear on the black curtain: what happened "behind the scenes" in this story.
But educational program is not the only reason for admission. Why this is really needed will become clear only in the last picture, in the desert. When on the back the lines of the last farewell, echoing the words of the duet of death, begin to chaotically overlap each other, full of exclamation marks and flowing like blood under the drops of surging tears.
Conductor Yader Binyamini (Italy) worked a lot with Netrebko, she trusts him, but at the first performance, the orchestra under the baton of a young Italian more than once disagreed with the choir, especially in the first act, and the choir (which, according to rumors from rehearsals, Binyamini ordered more than once to sing quieter) in addition, it was still not audible. Sometimes it seemed that the orchestra itself, without a conductor, was setting musical tasks for itself. It is worth noting the orchestral solos: the violin by Mikhail Tsinman, the cello by Boris Lifanovsky and the viola by Vladimir Yarovoy.
Brother Manon, the unlucky Lesko (Elchin Azizov) and her "daddy", the colorful Geront (Alexander Naumenko) sang without fear or reproach.
It makes no sense to praise the voice of Anna Netrebko: they just don’t get into world superstars. The standing ovation of the audience after the performance is also eloquent. Her partner, perhaps, did not start so smoothly, irregularities slipped in his voice, but by the middle of the performance, the cavalier de Grie sang, and despite the difficulties of the acoustics (on the stage open deep into the depths, the sound does not “return”), both Netrebko and Eyvazov sounded perfect.
Eyvazov at the same time sang pure "Italianism" - passionately, with open emotion. Which is peculiarly superimposed on the conceptual, in general, directing. Netrebko, more than her partner, played along with the director's metaphors. And in the finale, when everyone - both Shapiro and the characters - abandoned the concept and went into tragic psychologism, the duet of a dying woman and a grieving man sank in his heart.
The finale in the desert is decided by the director wonderfully. An empty black stage, writing on the back, the gathering darkness. Two mortally tired men in black. Des Grieux, who had the end of the world. And Manon, who thought it was impossible to be tender when there was not enough bread. Now the complexity of life was revealed to her to the bottom.
Yusif Eyvazov and Anna Netrebko. Photo - Damir Yusupov Netrebko, even at the moment of death, radiated the magic of sensuality, and her wonderful voice filled with plaintive crying. Where did all the puppet and philistine things go with this Manon? It flew off like a husk.
The singer brought the fading of the heroine to the viewer's catharsis. And it was not in vain that Eyvazov said that his game was a test of endurance and physical survival on stage. No, they did not fall on their faces, did not sob in each other's arms, they simply stood at the edge of the stage and looked into the hall. And the hall was crying.
- the Russian singer, who has been applauded by the whole world for more than one year - first performed at the Bolshoi Theater. The performer herself chose the work for her debut on the most famous stage of the country, appearing before the public in the title role in "". This beautiful opera by G. Puccini has not been staged before at the Bolshoi Theater, but it occupies a special place in fate: while performing it at the Rome Opera, she met Yusif Eyvazov, who later became her husband. In the performance of the Bolshoi Theater, this singer performed the part of the cavalier de Grieux. Equally remarkable performers performed in other parts: Lesko - Elchin Azizov, Geronte - 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 youth of the heroine and the vocal part, which requires a strong voice and considerable experience. Both appear in singers at a fairly mature age. These qualities are there - the artist delighted the audience with the richness of all registers, the richness of timbre colors, the subtlety of nuance and phrasing, and her amazing plasticity allows the experienced singer to look convincing in the image of a young girl. Presenting at first a very young, half-child, in the second act the heroine already looks like a seductive young woman, but as soon as her lover appears, the features of a girl appear again in all her movements, so direct in the sincerity of her feelings. Equally convincing is the 39-year-old Y. Eyvazov in the role of an impulsive young man in love. True, the singer's voice did not always sound even, although in general the performer coped with the part.
Manon Lesko - Anna Netrebko. Cavalier de Grieux - Yusif Eyvazov. Photo by Damir Yusupov
He conducted the performance of Yader Binyamini. The conductor's work made a good impression both on the public and on, who believes that it is very convenient to sing with an orchestra under his direction. The orchestra, choir and soloists' voices sounded balanced and clear, delighting the listeners with 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 "" was directing. Director Adolf Shapiro - like - for the first time collaborates with the Bolshoi Theater, but - unlike the singer - did not show his best side. The director's idea is not bad in itself: to emphasize in the image of the heroine the features of a girl who has not completely parted with her childhood and 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 fond of 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, which is completely out of harmony with the music of G. Puccini: a giant puppet 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 blunders, the debut at the Bolshoi Theater can be considered successful. I would like to believe that the first role of the singer on the main stage of Russia will not be the last, and the audience of the Bolshoi Theater will discover new facets of her talent.
