Friday, September 27, 2024 Peter Weber
“The production is proof that there is no need to invent rickety paths trying for new interpretations, for updating.”
“In Denysi Pivnicky, a thirty-four-year-old Ukrainian, the directors found a well-equipped singer and actor for the title role.”
“Moldovan soprano Olga Busuioc’s big solo scene in the third act had the audience breathless.”
After a decade, Verdi’s Otello is being performed again in Prague. Conductor Andrij Jurkevyč and director Martin Čičvák are behind the new project premiered on Thursday at the State Opera. Denys Pivnickij made his debut in the title role, Mikołaj Zalasiński was Jag, and Olga Busuioc was Desdemona. The production is artistically expressive and impressive and will bear international comparison without hesitation.
From the first notes, it is clear that the production of the music director of the State Opera, Andrije Jurkevyč, has the ambition to be the emotional basis of real musical theater. Martin Čičvák , a renowned drama and increasingly opera director, infuses the production with a readable and believable psychology and, in collaboration with the designers Hans Hoffer and Georgios Vafias , a simple, precisely functioning and extremely impressive scenic form.
The new Otello of the Prague National Theater is an example of a reasonably contemporary look at the classics. Proving that an extremely impressive theatrical performance can be created without having to invent more or less rigid paths trying for new interpretations, for updating and contemporary visualization; or even precisely because the director does not try to take such steps, often perceived controversially by the audience.
Martin Čičvák has already directed Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte , Verdi’s Macbeth , Paul Abraham’s Ball at the Savoy Hotel and last year Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mcenské újezd at the National Theatre . His imagination is distinctive and rich, and his mature acting experience is priceless in musical theater, which at its worst tends toward cliché. Otello , originally an incisive Shakespearean drama and, in Verdi’s treatment, an equally brilliant modern opera, is presented as a civil, non-schematically realistic scene from life – as a thrilling story and a natural-looking study of human passions, and indeed as a symbolic capture of the indestructibility of evil. It confidently portrays an unadulterated tragedy, clear and unavoidable, unencumbered by secondary motives and extraneous attempts to so-called get closer to the viewer of the twenty-first century. It uses the monumentality of the large stage and the simple scenography supported by lighting design for a timeless impact, without losing a detailed view of the experiences of the three main characters.
The protagonists of the premiere evening on September 26 were Otello, Iago and Desdemona in the given cast. In Denys Pivnicky , a Ukrainian of only thirty-four years, the directors found a well-equipped representative of the title role – passionately animalistic and not at all weak. Although the theater announced that he was indisposed, he sang respectably. He is not the type of a dark heroic voice, but for the character of Othello, which he staged for the first time – boldly, but not recklessly, given his age – he found enough strength, dramatic expression and masculinity, and perhaps an unswitched vocal range. He plays very relaxed and naturally, as was already shown in the prominent role of Sergei in the mentioned Shostakovich’s tragic satire.
Iago is perfectly cast in the new production. Mikołaj Zalasiński gradually developed his singing into a respectable form, but he became even more enthusiastic as an actor. He is not a slyly snotty devil, but he is all the more dangerous. Resentment against the Moor, whether it arose from insulted vanity or because of his difference, as well as satisfaction from a purposefully elaborate intrigue and then triumph over him, is expressed in many ways; at a key moment, he just needs to lean on the imaginary hinges of the door and watch him with some amusement. And that at the very end of the opera, after he disappeared after the revelation, he finally returns to the stage and has the last word by blowing out the flame? Unfortunately, evil is indestructible…
Moldovan soprano Olga Busuioc , currently working in Germany and attracting attention on theater stages from Los Angeles to Madrid and Naples to Glyndebourne, is already known in Prague from the title role of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly . Desdemona sang in her darker voice with nice high pitches in a pattern. Her long solo scene in the third act with the familiar jiva and prayer song, a scene vocally mastered and powerfully felt, with a beautifully slow and quiet orchestral undertone, the audience watched breathlessly.
Kateřina Jalovcová , Martin Šrejma , Josef Moravec , Jan Hnyk and Oleg Korotkov contribute to the overall positive sounding image of this production in the director’s no less sophisticated minor roles .
Otello is performed at the State Opera on a stage dominated by two giant plates that open and close. A prominent role is played by a light white canopy, lowered for two night scenes – a loving one and then a murderous one – from above the large bed. Some realistic details, such as snacks on the table, are not excluded with the prevailing clean and beautiful minimalism of the overall artistic solution. In it, the characters in distinctive costumes move realistically and relaxed. A dancer intertwines between the choristers, there are sword fights, wine is drunk, fires are lit and there is even blood. Above all, however, as a bolt, unobtrusively conveying the message of the work, remains a perfectly mastered directorial concept.
Andrij Jurkevyč leads the orchestra and the action on stage with confidence, resulting in expressively uniquely profiled musical surfaces and scenes, from the opening chorus and the sea storm through the dialogues irresistibly moving the plot and through the beautiful large ensemble to the last act, which crowns the masterfully written work with an ominously calm direction towards tragedy and the final dramatic denouement. The production is currently one of the best that can be seen at the opera in Prague.
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Also read the article Otello and Prague in SeriesPlus classics in context.
Photo: National Theater Prague / Serghei Gherciu