Moscow’s historic Bolshoi theatre re-opens with opera ‘Ruslan and Lyudmila’

The first production to be seen on the historic stage of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre’s this week, after its six-year renovation, is a modern take on Mikhail Glinka’s folkloric romantic opera “Ruslan and Lyudmila”.

Singers and musicians took part in the dress rehearsal on Monday night ahead of the opening on Thursday.

Called a “national brand” by President Dmitry Medvedev at its lavish reopening on Oct. 28, the Bolshoi promised Russian opera and ballet premieres.

Glinka’s opera is based on the 1820 poem by Alexander Pushkin.

The Bolshoi’s curtains, with the word ‘Russia’ scrawled across them and coloured crimson and gold, matching the new decor of the theatre, parted to reveal an elaborate pastel blue set reminiscent of traditional Russian Easter eggs.

The singers of the Bolshoi opera company wore the traditional costumes of a Russian fairy story, with men in elaborate ‘kokoshniki’, jewel-studded headresses, and men in richly-coloured robes.

Singer Mikhail Petrenko performs the part of the hero Ruslan, who undergoes extreme suffering in his journey tofind his love Ludmila, after she is snatched from their wedding ceremony by the sorcerer Chernomor.

“All these problems, emotions, anxieties are multiplied by ten and so it turns a fairy tale into a soul-searching drama,” Petrenko told journalists gathered backstage in the restored Bolshoi.

The first act, is played in full period costume — the opera takes place in medieval Kiev — but the later acts transition into the modern day, using video screens, modern sets and nudity in the final act.

Protagonist Lyudmila, performed by Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova from Houston’s Grand Opera, is found by Ruslan in a rehab clinic in the final act, too dazed to recognise her true love.

It is by far the most modern take on the opera on the Bolshoi’s historical stage, where it has been performed more than 700 times in nine different versions over the past 165 years.

“His (director Dmitry Chernyakov’s) vision of Ruslan and Ludmila is radically different from other versions which have been played on the Bolshoi stage and this production will be special. My role – well I have never played a Ludmila like this one, she is no modest girl in the Russian sense. But I want to make her a real  Russian girl so I am putting all my strength into doing this in my way, but within Chernyakov’s interpretation,” said Shagimuratova.

Chernyakov, whose first ever theatre visit was to the Bolshoi as a child with his mother, said his ‘Ruslan and Ludmila’ deals with the problems of modern life and is much more than a fairy tale.

“All the characters, the heroes, the situations have the same edge that we find in the anxieties we experience in our real, modern, lives and we are trying to make them believable as actual people and in order to create this credibility we use many different ways of acting on the audience so that the audience believes in this story which is not just a fairy tale,” said Chernyakov.

He said he tried to focus on the work and forget the pressure of being chosen to stage the first opera production in the newly-refurbished Bolshoi.

“When I work I try to focus so I can concentrate intensively on one point, so that I can get the job done. So when I am doing a play I try not to give in to nostalgia, not to think that I am in a great theatre, that I am in an auditorium which is 230-years-old theatre, because if I start to think that  it makes me shy and disoriented and things will get difficult,” Chernyakov told reporters before the dress rehearsal.

Chernyakov worked with conductor Vadimir Yurovsky to stage the opera. Yurovsky said he chose to conduct a small orchestra for ‘Ruslan and Ludmila’ because it was more suited to the style of Glinka’s music.

“From the stylistic point of view I think Glinka’s music should be much closer to Beethoven, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and not to the epoch of Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and so on, so I consciously chose this (a smaller orchestra) and if the accoustics of the Bolshoi are as good as they say they are, then this small band can make quite enough sound,” said Yurovsky.

The cream-coloured, eight-columned ballet and opera house is revered the world over as the arbiter of classics.

 Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi’s main stage was closed in 2005 after years of neglect and heavy use during Soviet times and has now been restored to its opulent Tsarist beginnings.

Russian audiences, who have struggled with modern adaptations of ballets in recent years, may find it hard to grapple with Chernyakov’s take on the well-loved opera.

Having survived three fires, a World War Two bombing and being perched over an underground river, the Bolshoi has been doused in gold leaf, had a rare pine panels  installed and has cutting-edge acoustics.

Ruslan and Lyudmila runs at the Bolshoi until Nov. 11.

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