Rautavaara: Rasputin
Libretto by the
composer
Matti Salminen (bass) - Rasputin
Lilli Paasikivi
(mezzo-soprano) - Empress Alexandra
Jorma Hynninen (baritone) - Tsar
Nicholas
Jyrki Anttila (tenor) - Felix Yusupov
Ritva-Liisa Korhonen
(soprano) - Anya
Riikka Rantanen (soprano) - Irina
Gabriel Suovanen
(baritone) - Dmitri Pavlovich
Finnish National Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Mikko
Franck (conductor)
Vilppu Kiljunen (director)
Friday 19 September
2003
Finnish National Opera, Helsinki
Eighty-seven years after his
violent death, Grigory Rasputin, one of the most enigmatic, mysterious and
ambivalent characters in Russian history, seems to be more in vogue than ever.
You would have to go back a long way in opera history to find another real-life
figure serving as
the subject of two world
premieres within less than a week: Just five days passed between the opening of
Deborah Drattell's Nicholas and Alexandra at Los Angeles Opera and the
first performance of Einojuhani Rautavaara's Rasputin, commissioned by
the Finnish National Opera.
Compared to his previous opera, the intimate and musically more original Aleksis Kivi , Rautavaara's new opus seems like a step back in time — to be more specific, into the first half of the 19th century, the prime of Meyerbeer and Halévy. Though the story focuses on Rasputin and the Empress Alexandra, Rautavaara uses no fewer than 25 soloists. In its scale, structure and lush, even sumptuous musical texture, Rasputin is very much a grand opéra.
The story is told chronologically and opens with the Crown Prince Alexis suffering a hemophilia attack. The royal doctors have already given up on him when Rasputin, introduced at court by the Empress Alexandra's lady-in-waiting, enters and heals the boy, if only for the moment. What follows is the well-known story of the charismatic monk gaining more and more influence on the Empress, preaching his philosophy of being redeemed from sin only through sinning (and, to prove his point, throwing one orgy after another), while his opponents plot to get rid of him, resorting in the end to poisoning, shooting and then drowning the man in order to finish him off.
The final scene, after Rasputin's murder, uses the text of the healer's last letter, in which, foreseeing his own death, he predicts the end of the Russian Empire and the Romanov family if he is killed by members of the nobility. In the last brief stage image, the Bolshevik Revolution has arrived, the Russian people rise up and the Empress cries out to God. As a finale, it proves to be anti-climactic; from a theatrical point of view, it might have been wiser to end with the title character's assassination.
Rautavaara's score is
melodic and not much of a challenge to the ear; you don't exactly leave the
opera house humming scenes from the work, but you might just do so after a
second performance. Sometimes the music is reminiscent of Erich Wolfgang
Korngold in his Hollywood years; there's a touch of Mussorgsky and
Rimsky-Korsakov here and there, a dark, melancholy Russian aura. The composer,
who wrote his own libretto (in Finnish), straightforwardly illustrates the plot,
often with foreboding or threatening
undertones; he uses Leitmotifs
regularly and he's not afraid of long, grand ensemble scenes with soloists and
chorus. There's no doubt that Rautavaara is a very talented and skillful
composer who knows his craft inside out. But Rasputin is hardly ever
daring, unpredictable or even particularly inventive. It doesn't sound like
music of the 21st century, or even, most of the time, of the 20th.
For his set, built on a turntable, designer Hannu Lindholm used only a few decorative fragments of imperial grandeur, along with Russian Orthodox icons; these were mounted on bare gray stone walls that suggested a time after the Revolution. Kimmo Viskari's period costumes evoked the splendor of the late Tsarist Russia. Director Vilppu Kiljunen told the story directly and, quite appropriately for this work, conventionally.
Rautavaara wrote the title role for Matti Salminen, who sang and acted the
mammoth part skillfully. Yet one look at a photograph of the real Rasputin gives
an idea of how hypnotic, how repulsive and at the same time how fascinating this
man must have been. Reports of the time back up this impression. In Salminen's
portrayal, the monk came across as an exceptional human being with a couple of
character flaws. The actual Rasputin may have been a gifted healer, a charlatan,
a sort of philosopher or the very incarnation of evil, but he was certainly not
just a nice guy who came to a bad end and deserved some compassion. Seemingly
everyone who encountered him reacted strongly: people became either obsessed
admirers who thought him to be a supernatural savior or appalled detesters who
considered him a dangerous plague. There was nothing in between. Salminen did
not offer these extremes: his Rasputin, strange as it may sound, was a touch too
human.
Lilli Paasikivi offered a wonderfully rich, deeply felt portrayal of Alexandra, and Jorma Hynninen made sure that his entrances as Tsar Nicholas were among the evening's most gripping moments. Jyrki Anttila and Gabriel Suovanen as the aristocratic conspirators Felix Yusupov and Dimitri Pavlovich (who allegedly had an affair to which Rautavaara devotes a scene) rendered their parts flawlessly; Riikka Rantanen was a noble Princess Irina and Ritva-Liisa Korhonen made a lively Anya, the lady-in-waiting who introduces Rasputin to Alexandra. The many supporting roles were cast impeccably. In the pit, Mikko Franck had a firm grip on Rautavaara's score. But it seemed, after the work was over, as if the last word on Rasputin has not yet been spoken. Operatically, there's a lot more to explore on this subject, and with a bolder musical approach.
