With the brilliant debut of Latvian bass Rihards Machanovskis in the role of Mephistopheles and the wonderful performance of the Ukrainian opera star Olha Bezsmertna in the role of Margareta, the production of the 29th Sigulda Festival of Opera Music – Charles Gounod’s opera will remain in our memory. Faust, which sounded on July 29. On the other hand, at the end of July 30, the biggest discovery of the concert was not even the guest invited here for the first time – the bright and absolutely lovely French-American lyric soprano Sandra Amauī – but how great shape the soloist of the Latvian National Opera, soprano Jūlija Vasiļjeva, is currently. A real treat! She proved her mastery in a stylistically wide repertoire from Giuseppe Verdi and Vincenzo Bellini to Franz Lehard’s operetta.
Voices that thrill
Beginning with the operas of Charles Gounod Faust message, first Mephistopheles – Rihards Macanovskis – comes out on stage in complete silence and… starts conducting the overture. Obeying the will of Mephistopheles, the colors and contents of the title page of the prospectus of the opera stage will soon change: instead of “Faust” written in white on a black background, there is “Mephistopheles” in bright red letters. The show’s performers should also be named in a similar hierarchical order, because it is Mephistopheles, played by Rihards Machanovskis, who is its most vivid character, who confidently and cynically directs the course of events and people’s destinies. His power of Mephistopheles comes out in a mighty, powerful, vocally agile bass, both in the blindingly bright, energetically sung couplets about the golden power that rules the world, both lavishly flattering Faust, and mocking the most sublime feelings in the caricatured serenade. The Latvian National Opera (LNO) is planning its award-winning production next season Faust renewal – then here is a truly impressive interpreter of the role of Mephistopheles was born at the Festival of Opera Music.
As effective as Mephistopheles and his bright world of infernal creatures is, the opera itself is still about Margaret, whose nuanced, humanly true vocal performance and expressive body language of guest artist Olha Bezsmertna managed to become a serious spiritual counterpoint to Mephistopheles’ evil, despite neither despair nor girlish naivety , not feminine fragility. The supremacy of spiritual power ready for the greatest sacrifice, faith and pious trust over the manipulations and cunning of evil is the essence of the basic idea of director Edmund Freiberg, and Olha Bezsmertna is exactly the kind of singer and actress that was needed for the revelation of this idea. Her soprano has a dreamy softness and clarity, warmth, and the ability to embody passionate love lust and despair. This voice has all the best you could want from a lyric soprano. It is a voice that appeals and thrills.
Olha Bezsmertna is an artist you can’t help but believe in – whether it’s the long-winded aria of Gretna at the cart or the aria of the Jewels filled with excitement, the desperate prayer in the heartless church or the firm, unwavering refusal to save her life offered by Faust and Mephistopheles. And the full spectrum does not lack the sad, melancholic ballad about the King of Tūle, which the conductor of the show, Atvars Lakstīgala, refused, carefully shortening the opera’s material.
Faust’s struggle
Unfortunately, this was the time when the top notes in the title role turned out to be unattainable for the French tenor Philippe Do, who is well-known to the audience of the Opera Music Festival and has visited Sigulda several times (since 2008, when the Opera Music Festival was briefly held in the Dzintari concert hall). Most likely, the intense rehearsal load has been too much. This was evidenced by the fatigue of Philip Do’s vocal cords in the second half of the performance, which at times manifested itself in hoarseness. However, the singer’s natural portrayal and sound of the voice in the rest of the range, the emotional fulfillment of Faust’s character, from sadness for lost youth to tender and passionate love and belated regret, compensated for the lack of vocally athletic peaks. After all, the meaning of opera is not to be found in one high note!
Under the musical direction of conductor Atvars Lakstīgalas, under the direction of Edmunds Freibergs, set designer Aigars Ozoliņš, video artist Ineta Sipunova, and costume designers Ieva Kundzina and Evia Johnson, the show ran smoothly and honestly in the visual environment. Everyone in it focused on the message of the opera, not on the self-serving display of their own imagination. Baritone Jānis Apeinis organically got into the character of Valentine, who composed one of the most beautiful songs for the character Guno – the sublimely flowing cavatina. Ilona Bagele created a juicy, vivid character of Marta on stage. The romantically youthful, ecstatic role of Siebel suits Marlēna Kane, while the small role of Wagner suits baritone Kalvi Kalniņas.
Although we all had a compact ensemble on stage instead of a choir in the current austerity mode, the sound did not lack power. The sound direction and visual “reinforcement” in the crimson and black dressed groups should also be thanked for this. Choreographer Inga Krasovska managed to conjure up Walpurgis Night on stage only with the help of choir movements and a single dancer. In the course of the dramaturgy of the production, the scene in the church and the simple but powerful finale of the play were particularly impressive – a vision of spiritual revelation in bright white light, already outside the material earthly world.
Sparkling feeling
It was also worth going to Sigulda in order to enjoy the splendor, depth and flow of mezzo-soprano Ilona Bagele’s voice at the concert at the end of the festival, which flourished convincingly in the orientally flexible aria of Dalila and captivated with natural temperament in Carmen’s habanera. The performance of French baritone Pierre-Yves Privot, a regular guest of Opersvätki, was worthy of attention, as well as the exciting performance of Escamillo’s couplets in competition with Jānis Apeini.
After a long break, but at the right time, maestro Aleksandrs Viļumanis, whose experience, mastery and personality charm have supported the Opera Music Festival since its beginning, returned to the conductor’s desk on the stage of the Sigulda ruins, playing several works. The conductor’s sense of humor and artistic, free communication with the orchestra, soloists and the audience gave the concert the much-needed, sparkling festive feeling that an academically stiff, but professionally high-quality performance could never achieve. It turns out that Jānis Liepiņš, who is still young in years but has already gained serious professional temper, who conducted the concert for the first time at the end of the Sigulda Opera Music Festival, will be a good successor to the traditions cultivated by the old master. This also applies to the witty approach of devoting the repertoire of the tenor crown (e.g. the Neapolitan song O my sun) for the low male voices – Jānis Apeinis, Rinaldas Kandalintsevs and Krišjānis Norvelis.
An intriguing discovery of the Opera Music Festival is the violinist Dainis Medjaniks, who has only flashed a few times in the music life of Latvia, because after the 9th grade of Dārziņskola he went to study in Germany, in 2015 he entered the top six of the Paganini competition in Genoa and now actively performs concerts in Europe and beyond. This September, the violinist will participate in the prestigious international ARD competition for performing musicians in Munich.
Unfortunately, the audience of opera lovers was divided by the fact that on the day it happened in Sigulda Faust performance, the Cēsu Art Festival offered Richard Wagner’s operas Siegfried a concert performance with a stellar line-up. Even worse, the events of the Opera Music Festival were not recorded by Latvian Radio – so you will not be able to listen to them on the radio Classic in the archive. And they were hardly visited in person by a scout from the Latvian National Opera, but they should have been, especially considering what is expected of the LNO Faust restoration.
Tradition must live on
At the end of the Sigulda Opera Music Festival, its creator, doctor Dainis Kalns, publicly announced that he was putting an end to the thirty years dedicated to this tradition. Once started and strengthened on the basis of the private enthusiasm of a surgeon working at Sigulda hospital at the time and his spouse, actress Lolitas Caukas, the Festival of Opera Music has become a valuable brand of the city of Sigulda. This has marked this city on the world cultural map, with one already in the first years winning funds for the conservation of the walls of the castle ruins of Sigulda, which were rapidly crumbling at the time, and motivating the beautification of the city stage and the surrounding area.
For thirty years, this summer event has been offering quality, surprising with ever-new, outstanding world opera voices and has discovered talents that now shine brightly in the international constellation of opera. The democratic atmosphere of the Opera Festival has made it possible to fall in love with the art of opera even for those who otherwise would not have set foot in the Latvian National Opera. Simultaneously with the International Early Music Festival, which started in the same summer of 1993, the Opera Music Festival in Sigulda was the first international music festival in the restored free Latvia. At the time when the National Opera continued its critically long renovation, the Sigulda Opera Music Festival was the only opportunity to listen to our brightest artists who worked abroad. Clearly, the Festival of Opera Music must continue. The municipality of Sigulda region, in the person of Līga Sausiņa, resolutely promises that it will be so. Next summer – already the thirties.
2023-08-12 06:00:48
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