The Marriage (1868) is an innovative opera composed
by the young Musorgsky at the height of the extant traditions of musical
theatre. Here the composer used the text, almost unaltered, of Gogolґs prose,
setting himself the task of recreating in music «human speech in all its most
subtle nuances». The Marriage was left uncompleted – Musorgsky
wrote only the first of the initially planned three acts, and it remained,
moreover, un-orchestrated. The only performance during the composerґs lifetime
took place in a circle of like-minded musicians who formed the so-called «New
Russian school». Stunned by the «unbelievable merits» of The Marriage,
at the same time they doubted the possibility of performing it at a contemporary
opera house: the manuscript of the work lay forgotten in the depths of
St Petersburgґs Public Library right up until 1906 when Rimsky-Korsakov
considered the time was ripe for it to be «discovered» and he began preparations
to have it published. The operaґs first concert performances to piano
accompaniment took place only forty years after it had been written and long
after the composerґs own death.
The Marriage may force us to agree
with the theory that the music came from the spoken word, as a stylisation of
its natural accents. Musorgskyґs characters speak in this vernacular in almost
the same way as people in everyday life, and at the same time they sing. The
composer translates precisely into musical language the various speech
intonations, raising all their characteristic features to the most supreme
artistic vibrancy. And like Moliиreґs Monsieur Jourdain, amazed at the discovery
that he has been speaking in prose all his life, audiences at The
Marriage are surprised to discover that they have spoken their whole lives
in recitative! Musorgskyґs search for truthful expression of the intonations of
human speech that brought about this turning to a prosaic text was entirely
natural: in literature, to which opera is inextricably linked, a similar trend
towards simplicity and naturalness resulted in a reorientation towards prose
even in the first half of the 19th century. Cui (William Ratcliff) and
Dargomyzhsky (The Stone Guest) were also in Musorgskyґs close circle,
working at the same time as him, as well as towards the same end. But here, as
in everything else, the composer was most «pro-impertinent» (his own
expression): unlike elder contemporaries whose searches remained within the
confines of poeticised, highly romanticised subjects traditional for musical
theatre, Musorgsky turned to the satire of Gogolґs «utterly improbably
occurrence». One can imagine how stunned the audience of the time would have
been by the sound of such «low» expressions, as «promoted» by the music, at
expressions seemingly inadmissible for singing, such as «the lying dog», «the
arrant fool», «the Devil take it!» and so on, when even a reference to everyday,
prosaic items like polish, boots, a bench, collars or starch would be a source
of mirth.
The analytical writing method discovered in The Marriage
played an important role in forming the composerґs style, though the
significance of this opera transcends well beyond the confines of Musorgskyґs
art alone. It was this that opened up the strong-willed «Gogol» line in musical
theatre and many subsequent treatments of Gogolґs satire in opera have not been
left untouched by its influence.
At the Mariinsky Theatre, The
Marriage is being performed in an orchestration commissioned by Valery
Gergiev in 1991 from Professor of the St Petersburg Conservatoire and
Honoured Artist of Russia Vyacheslav Lavrentievich Nagovitsin. Vyacheslav
Nagovitsin has devoted a vast amount of his energies to Musorgskyґs
legacy – it was he who prepared the composerґs first opera Salambф
for production, presenting it in two different orchestral versions (these
versions have been performed on numerous occasions both in Russia and abroad).
Vyacheslav Nagovitsin approached the instrumentation of The Marriage
creatively, and he has not attempted to stylise Musorgsky: his aim was the
creation of his own, contemporary version, in which he has striven to emphasise
and portray the composerґs innovative vocal discoveries in the most favourable
light possible.
Nadezhda Kulygina
The Opera of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan
Nikiforovich by major contemporary Russian composer and professor
at the St Petersburg Conservatoire Gennady Banshchikov was commissioned in 1971
by the Kirov Theatre. The Theatre's proposal of a Gogol theme was close to the
composer: in his childhood he had often spent the summers in Gogol's homeland,
visiting famous Gogol places and intently reading the writer's books.
This
Mirgorod tale of a quarrel between two landowners is an absolutely up-to-date
story of how people have not been and remain unable to come to an agreement with
one another. It is highly probable that all world conflicts arise from
"trifles", mere nothings. In the opera, Banshchikov the first part of the tale,
stopping where Ivan Ivanovich in shame is driven from the courtyard of his
former bosom friend. The whole history of the lengthy, interminable lawsuit of
Mirgorod's landowners remained beyond the scope of a one-act work, or, it could
be said, a developed opera scиne.
The action, such as it is, is practically
nonexistent here (unless it is a peasant woman chancing to hang out a rusty gun
together with the laundry) and the "drama" unfolds in a deeply chatty, dialogue
form. Gogol's text is used unchanged and retains its richness and imagery of
language, the amazing moulding of the characters and the absurdity of the
various situations. Although Gogol's laughter relates least of all to situation,
but rather to how that situation is recounted. And the composer has succeeded in
giving the opera that particular essence of Gogol's prose - the essence of what
is funny, of what lies in the unexpected, of what is expressed in the
paradoxical non-correspondence of the insignificance of chance and the deep
seriousness of how it comes about. The counterweight to the chamber scene is
enacted by the full (triple) orchestra, and its role is significant: in terms of
the symphonic development of the material, the opera may be compared with the
vast musical dramas of Wagner and Richard Strauss (Banshchikov highly regarded
the latter and dedicated the work to him). The author's first ironic gesture can
be found already in the introduction in the form of a not-so-subtle hint at
Beethoven's Heroische Symphony: here, love the "heroes" of my
imagining. The main theme of the opera comes with the Ukrainian song I Am
Surprised at Heaven by 19th century composer Zaremba, whose
naive, simple melody blends so well with the local colour and nature of the
characters, and is subjected to refined transformations, reflecting the entire
palette of conditions and emotions of the Mirgorod landowners in the struggle to
possess the "object of passion". The composer is not afraid to combine utterly
contrasting styles - and isn't that a reproduction in musical means of Gogol's
manner of juxtaposing the heavenly and the earthy, to relate a mediocre anecdote
with refined artistry, using the most refined literary language?
In The
Opera of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich, there is
indeed truly much that is witty. Comical with its seriousness and serious with
its comedy, it subtly recreates the atmosphere of Gogol's tale.
Nadezhda
Kulygina