The Prince and the prima donna

WESTERN OPERA has always been a mainstay at Thailand’s largest annual performing arts festival, Bangkok’s International Festival of Dance and Music. And this year is no different.
Under the baton of the award-winning Golden Mask conductor Alexander Anissimov, the Samara Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre will stage Alexander Borodin’s “Prince Igor” and “Tosca” by Giacomo Puccini. Both are huge productions with the former featuring more than 190 performers and dancers and the latter some 150, and are accompanied by the Samara State Symphony Orchestra.
One of Russia’s biggest musical theatres, the Samara Academic Opera House opened in 1931 with the Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov”. Over the years, it has built up a repertoire of classic operas, establishing it as one of the top companies in the world. Its repertoire features more than 50 classical and modern operas, among them “Eugene Onegin”, “Queen of Spades”, “The Tsar’s Bride”, “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”, “Rigoletto”, “La Traviata”, “Aida”, “Carmen”, “Madame Butterfly”, “Don Giovanni” and “Porgy and Bess”. In February 1999, they staged a landmark performance with the world premiere of “Ivan The Terrible” by S Slonimsky, which included masters such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Robert Sturua, Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili and Alla Sigalova.
Very rarely performed outside Russia, Prince Igor is an opera in two acts by Borodin, who was a chemist by profession. His dual careers prevented him from completing a number of important musical works, among them this opera. Written over 18 years, it was completed after his death in 1887, by Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov among others, and remains one of the most important works in Russian operatic history.
It is set in 1185 against the backdrop of the protagonist’s campaign against the nomadic Polovtsians, who for a while had been ravaging the Russian territories. When his troops are defeated, he and his son, Vladimir, are taken captive. During their captivity, Vladimir falls in love with the beautiful daughter of Khan Konchak, the Polovtsian ruler, who also sees his captive as a potential ally, if he will seek a truce. The obstinate Igor instead vows to continue his fight and eventually escapes. He returns to a city to find it in ruins, but despite his failures, the people hail his homecoming.
The musical centrepiece of this opera is an exhilarating set of dances performed by 40 dancers. Titled the Polovtsian Dances, they accompany the lavish banquet put on by the Polovtsian leader Khan, and are a definite audience-pleaser with the exquisite choral parts.
Stage director Yuri Alexandrov and art director Vyacheslav Okunev, both winners of the prestigious Golden Mask Award, have outdone themselves with the fantastic sets and decorations for this performance in Bangkok.
Tosca, on the other hand, is a three-act heart-wrenching melodrama of love lust, revenge and sacrifice set to composer Giacomo Puccini’s most beautiful and passionate music, and his best-known lyrical arias, including the powerful “Lucevan le stelle” and the haunting “Vissi d’arte”.
Set in the Rome of 1800, which is being threatened by Napoleon’s invasion of Italy, it focuses on a tempestuous prima donna, Floria Tosca, forced to play a role she never imagined. When her lover, Cavaradossi, is captured by Rome’s secret police, she becomes trapped between her allegiance to her rebel lover and the scheming of a deceitful police chief who lusts after her.
One of opera’s most bloodiest and intense dramas, not only will “Tosca” keep you on the edge of your seat till the curtain falls, but once again Alexandrov and Okunev will transform the stage with their spectacular set changes that transport the audience to the time and place.
Generous sponsorship from Bangkok Bank, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services, B Grimm, BMW, Beiersdorf, Crown Property Bureau, Dusit Thani Bangkok, Indorama Ventures, PTT, The Nation Group, Singha Corporation, Thai Airways International, Tourism Authority of Thailand and Ministry of Culture has enabled the organisers, International Cultural Promotions, to bring shows of such magnitude to Bangkok.
 OPERA WEEKEND
- “Prince Igor” will be staged on Friday and “Tosca” on Sunday at 7.30pm at the Thailand Cultural Centre.
- Tickets are Bt 1,500 to Bt4,500. For details, see www.ThaiTicketMajor.com or www.BangkokFestivals.com.