New Stage
| 27 December |
| 19:00 |
| 2017 | Wednesday |
|
The Story of Kai and Gerda Opera |
|
The performance has 1 intermission Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Sergei Banevich — a pupil of Galina Ustvolskaya and Orest Evlakhov who, in turn, studied under Dmitri Shostakovich — continues the traditions of the Petersburg composers’ school, his work probing even deeper to the school’s roots and sources.
A modern classic, who entered the history of Russian theatre and cinema at the end of the 20th-beginning of the 21st century, the author of music for many plays and movies, he, like no one else, has an intuitive feel for the living pulse of drama. His music is always vibrant and, in the best sense of the word, theatrical. Organically interwoven into text, sequence of events and visual images, it imparts added punch to each frame. But it is at children that Banevich’s music has always been aimed. He has composed marvelous operas, musicals and operettas for children (The Young Prince, Treasure Island, The Brave Tin Soldier, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Mermaid and many, many more).
The Story of Kai and Gerda (or The Snow Queen), is one of Sergei Banevich’s most famous operas. It was written in the year the Afghan War started (1979) at a time that, as the composer himself says, was totally unsuited to this appealing story of the warmth of the human heart which ran counter to the ‘official’ social moods of the time. For all this, the Kirov Theatre (today the Mariinsky) decided to stage the opera. And they were right — audiences loved it and it was to remain in the repertoire for thirty years.
This is the first time The Story of Kai and Gerda has been produced at the Bolshoi. The production team is made up of the very young and the very experienced. Director Dmitri Belyanushkin graduated from the Russian Academy of the Performing Arts (GITIS) just two years ago, but he has already won the NANO-opera international competition for young opera directors and has staged productions at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre, the Voronezh Theatre of Opera and Ballet and at the I.M.Yaushev State Music Theatre in Saransk. The Story of Kai and Gerda is not his first work for the Bolshoi, last year he directed a semi-staged version of Le Nozze di Figaro for the Theatre.
Conductor Anton Grishanin is the production’s musical director. A Ural Conservatoire graduate who, for five years was artistic director and chief conductor of the Chelyabinsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet, at the present time he is conductor at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre, and guest conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, the Novosibirsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and also with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia. At the Bolshoi, Anton Grishanin has conducted the ballets Don Quixote, Classical Symphony to music by Prokofiev, and Swan Lake.
The sets are by the legendary scenographer, People’s Designer of the USSR Valery Leventhal. And the opera is lit by Bolshoi Theatre Chief Lighting Designer Damir Ismagilov. Synopsis
PrologueA rocky landscape.
The trolls are piecing together the shards of what they call the Mirror of Evil.
Act I
Introduction
The Lamplighter, our guide through this story, tells us that once upon a time an orphaned boy named Kai found a loving home in the good old town of Odense, where the Grandmother took care about him and little Gerda became his friend.
Scene 1.
Odense.
The townsfolk of Odense are looking forward for Spring to drive away winter’s chill and snow.
Kai and Gerda are carried away with their exciting game. The Grandmother is calling them home, but they don’t hear.
The trolls arrive. They can’t bear the merry mood of the townsfolk, and above all they hate Kai’s cheerful laughter. The trolls want to spoil the festivity, but the townsfolk drive them away. The trolls plot to revenge.
Scene 2.
Kai and Gerda’s house.
Kai is daydreaming over a book. He wishes he could travel to faraway lands, for the old house has grown too small for him.
Gerda sets up the fire in the fireplace and lights the room with candles. Kai swears to her that he will ever be faithful and will never leave her alone.
The Grandmother comes. Kai jokingly tells Gerda the story of the Snow Queen. Gerda laughs, but then notices a shadow outside the window. Someone has been prying on them!
Now Kai understands that he has terrified Gerda, and he starts a game of blind Tom to make it up to her. As they play, they take no notice of a troll approaching.
The troll pricks an icy pointer at Kai’s heart. Kai begins mocking Gerda and the Grandmother and sneering at them. Suddenly he sees frostwork turn into writings and hears the voice of the Snow Queen. She wants to take Kai with her, but Gerda refuses to let him go.
Intermezzo
The Lamplighter laments the human hearts in which Winter has settled.
The trolls talk over their trick and look forward to the coming of the Snow Queen.
Scene 3.
Odense town square.
A company of strolling performers entertains the townsfolk. Gerda is doing her best to make Kai smile, but he is disdainful and arrogant and insults the townsfolk and the Lamplighter.
The Snow Queen appears and summons Kai to her icy palace. Kai heeds her calling and follows her into the snow whirl.
Gerda sets out to find her beloved.
Act II
Scene 4.
A forest at dusk.
Gerda is making her way through the thicket.
Suddenly the forest gets into motion: the robbers have found the chill in the hollows of the tree trunks. The robbers are tired and hungry and not at all content with having ventured so far away.
The Old Robber-Woman returns with booty. The robbers give praises to her and to their trade.
Gerda falls into the robbers’ ambush. She possesses nothing that they can rob her of, so they intend to kill her, but the Old Robber-Woman orders to keep her captive until morning.
The Little Robber-Girl appears, the daughter of the Old Robber-Woman. Gerda’s story about Kai touches her heart and fills her with desire to help, but she does not know how.
The Little Robber-Girl’s captured Reindeer breaks in their conversation: he saw the Snow Queen taking Kai away and knows where to find him.
The Little Robber-Girl sets Gerda and the Reindeer free.
Gerda rides the Reindeer straight to Lapland.
Intermezzo
The Lamplighter contemplates about the saddest and the most wicked thing in the world, lovelessness.
Scene 5.
The Palace of the Snow Queen.
Captive children, whose hearts are frozen by the Snow Queen, are trying to compose the word Eternity with of pieces of ice.
Kai is among the children, and his efforts to compose the word are of no avail.
The Snow Queen arrives and finds that Kai’s heart is beginning to thaw. She freezes him again and leaves, and he carries on with his occupation.
Gerda arrives. She sings the song that she and Kai used to sing together, and Kai’s heart gets warm again. The flame of Kai and Gerda’s love brings the Snow Queen down.
Epilogue
Kai and Gerda hurry to Odense, where they are met by the townsfolk, the Little Robber-Girl and their dear old Grandmother. Everyone is impatient to welcome in the long-awaited spring.
|
The Story of Kai and Gerda
on the playbill |
Main Stage
1 Teatralnaya ploschad (1 Theatre Square), Moscow, Russia
New Stage
Bol'shaya Dmitrovka Street, 4/2, Moscow, Russia
|
