Performed in ItalianThe performance will have synchronised Russian and supertitles
Premiere of this production: 15 September 2016
Opera in three acts
Music Director Jan Latham-Koenig
Conductor Andrey Lebedev
Stage Director Ekaterina Odegova
Set Designer Etel Ioshpa
Costume Designer Svetlana Grishchenkova
Lighting Designer Nikita Smolov
Choirmaster Yulia Senyukova
Drama Advisor Mikhail Muginshtein
Coming on 15 September 2016
Recommended for 12+
Carles Gounod’ Faust after the Goethe tragedy enjoys pride of place among the operas that captured Russian hearts back in the 19th century. The opera almost immediately gained popularity in Russia. The Bolshoi Theatre staged the first version in 1866, just seven years after the Paris premiere.
Faust is quite literally part of Russian and Moscow opera culture. Among the exited admirers of this piece was a young doctor who later became a famous writer and playwright, Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940). Gounod’s opera is a recurrent character in Bulgakov’s work, and it is mentioned in the novel Master and Margarita.
The Novaya Opera Theatre presents its Faust in the year of the 150th anniversary of the opera’s Moscow premiere, and of the 125th anniversary of Mikhail Bulgakov’s birth. In this production, made by stage director Ekaterina Odegova and dramatist and opera critic Mikhail Muginshtein, Goethe’s and Gounod’s characters will possess recognizable Moscow features.
Says Mikhail Muginshtein, Dramatist:
The German-French matrix Goethe-Gounod will appear not only in the traditional way, but also in a dialogue with Bulgakov’s “faustianism” (when a student, the writer saw the opera41 times!). The culturology of the novel /Master and Margarita/is in many aspects determined by Bulgakov’s specific projection of Goethe and Gounod onto the Moscow ground. The coincidence of the heroine’s name, Margarita, is quite deliberate (the German opera has the same name). Allusions with an inner ring are also obvious: Goethe’s tragedy is reflected in the novel not only directly, but also through the mock mirror of Gounod’s opera (there are a number of peculiarities). Inspiring are not the parallels, but the intricate optics of the novel: interreflections of the semantics, playing with time and space (Satan “was at Pilate’s, and he was also at Kant’s for breakfast, and now he is paying a visit to Moscow”), avoiding simple linear action, etc. It is not that easy to re-intonate “the most operatic opera”. Making play around /Faust/’s clichés, an attempt can be made to accentuate again in the myth of European culture the ever-relevant problems: “human condition in the world”, the eternal choice between good and evil.
Synopsis
FIRST ACT
First scene
Following a beautiful unknown girl, whom he accidentally had met in Madrid,
the Count Almaviva arrived in Seville under a name of Lindoro. His servant
Fiorello managed to find out the girl’s address. To entice Rosina from the house
the Count sings her a serenade at night, but all his efforts are in vain… The
Count pays off musicians.
The barber Figaro recently moved in Siviglia, enjoying wide popularity here.
By chance he is brought together with his former master – Almaviva. Fortunately
to the Barber the Count, as it turned out, is in love with Dr. Bartolo’s ward –
Rosina, and in this situation a person who can enter Doctor’s house may be
extremely useful!
Meanwhile Bartolo is away for a short while. A new serenade by “Lindoro”
turns out to be more successful than the first one. The Count demands from
Figaro to bring him in to Bartolo’s house. To this the Barber suggests him to
pretend to be a drunken soldier. After that he gives a long and confused
explanation about his address in Seville, but without success, as it seems.
Sums, promised by the Count for his service, makes Figaro to give himself up to
rosy dreams… Second scene
Rosina is ready to run away with a splendid “Lindoro”, but how to do that? To
write a letter! Figaro, as usual, comes to offer his services to Rosina, but she
has no time to say a word about the letter as he disappears, hearing Doctor’s
steps.
Bartolo suspects that Figaro has come on purpose. He has heard that his ward
is noticed by the Count Almaviva and intends without delay to make Rosina his
wife tonight. A patient, that has come to him, a military musician Don Basilio,
works up a strategy of the battle: first, to defame an enemy spitefully, second,
immediately to make a marriage contract between Rosina and Bartolo. Their
conversation is overheard by Figaro: the girl should hurry up, if she does not
like to marry her guardian! Rosina gives the letter to the Barber, but Dr
Bartolo is already here and sets a trap to her, trying to catch her. The Count
disguised as a drunken soldier bursts into the house and tries to hand a letter
to Rosina. A fight begins between the Count and Bartolo. A noise draws attention
of a military patrol. After hearing to confused explanations from all who are
present, the Officer takes a decision to arrest the “soldier”. After a short
talk with a perspective prisoner tкteatкte, he changes his decision.
Nobody understands anything.
SECOND ACT
First scene
The Count again penetrates Bartolo’s house under a new mask to find a way to
Rosina’s heart. Disguised as Don Alonso, a faithful pupil of supposedly ill Don
Basilio, he gives the girl a singing lesson. Rosina performs an aria from a
popular opera “La Fille mal gardйe”. Old Bartolo does not approve of modern
music.
Figaro comes to shave the Doctor so that the lovers could talk without
trouble. Suddenly Don Basilio comes… A sum of money helps to diagnose scarlatina
with him and to suggest an idea to him to return home and receive medical
treatment. Rosina is going to escape with Almaviva at midnight, but Bartolo
again suspects of something and casts reproaches upon her. The servant Berta,
who has got tired of strange quarrels and shouts, dreams about
love… Second scene
Dr. Bartolo and Don Basilio work up a plot: it’s necessary to convince
Rosina, that Lindoro has another lover and he is an agent sent to kidnap the
girl for the Count Almaviva. Rosina agrees to the immediate marriage to Bartolo.
At midnight sharp the Count appears, but Rosina meets her “Lindoro” not the way
that he has expected. To become reconciled with the girl Almaviva is forced to
reveal his real name. The time for escape is missed; Basilio, the Notary and
then Bartolo appear. Rosina’s kidnapping is cancelled. The Count has at once to
marry lawfully in presence of all witnesses.