After “The Idiot” by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, the premiere of another opera based on a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky was on the program: “The Gambler” by Sergei Prokofiev, an extremely demanding work that never really caught on. The October Revolution initially prevented a premiere in Russia. It was not until 1929 that the opera was first performed on stage in a revised form – in Brussels, which was already one of the most innovative theaters at the time.
With The Player, the young composer wanted nothing less than to redefine the opera genre, which is fascinating from a music-historical perspective, but leads to musical overload. There are almost no ariose elements, no melodies that you can hold on to, although he certainly works in a leitmotif manner. This opera is a massive construct, a compositional tour de force with countless musical forms, tremendous power and narrative refinements that dribble over each other. This also makes listening exhausting. If you get into it, however, there are fantastically beautiful passages, some lyricism and definitely poetry in this work by the young and still impetuous Prokofiev. You can recognize his genius especially in the second part, especially when the score is implemented as intensely, precisely and with such sonic sophistication as by the Vienna Philharmonic. At the podium is Timur Zangiev, only 30 years old, definitely an expert in the Russian genre with a great desire to create.
The content of this opera, whose libretto was written by the composer himself and is based on the novel of the same name by Dostoyevsky, is about gambling addiction, love, the ability to buy love, the dictates of money, the Russian soul, and melancholy – typical Dostoyevsky. The central character is Alexei, who works as a tutor for the general and gambles away almost everything at the roulette table. In the end, however, when his account is really tight, he breaks the bank by betting everything on one color 20 times. Red wins – whether this can be interpreted politically is not clear. Despite all the money, his girlfriend runs off – who wants to go through life with a gambling addict?
The singing is first-class, especially by Sean Panikkar as Alexej, whose tenor is powerful and beautifully timbred and lasts the whole evening – he is on stage more or less all the time; by Asmik Grigorian as the fabulous Polina – what a luxury for this relatively small role in her large repertoire; by the bass Peixin Chen as the powerful general who suffers because he cannot keep the object of his desire without money; and by the great Violeta Urmana as the highly dramatic Babulenka.
Set designer George Tsypin has filled the arcades of the Felsenreitschule with mirrors, which creates beautiful effects. Seven huge roulette wheels float in the air, which repeatedly descend to earth like UFOs and flash like in “Mars Attacks”. The production is by Peter Sellars, is primarily an illustration and quite banal. But he probably can’t do much with this work either, perhaps that’s why he, typically for him, incorporates the fight against climate change into the scene again. The wall of the Felsenreitschule is partially covered in moss, grass grows on the roulette tables. He tries to make the story contemporary by having everyone wear cheap-looking costumes (not very smart), constantly use cell phones (should be banned on the opera stage) and having a German royal couple not verbally compromised as in the libretto, but showered with orange paint. And yet the Last Generation has just disbanded. Poor Asmik Grigorian, one of the greatest opera stars of our time, has to sit at the back of the stage for large parts of the evening in ugly jeans and a non-coloured T-shirt, as if she were glued there.
Sellars is probably trying to tell us with this production that we are gambling away our future, but money is not the most important thing. He is right, and his approach is touching and sympathetic. But if every word sung has to be translated into gestures, that is all too childish and naive.
It is doubtful whether this work will be included in more repertoires in the future. But the festival’s realization is certainly a great achievement. And it is unlikely that you will hear it sung and performed better.
At the end there was a lot of applause for this UFO within the opera literature.
