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The Guardian
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mazeppa review – Tchaikovsky's blood-thirsty opera is a wild and gruesome ride
David Alden's blood-spattered production of Mazeppa made headlines for English National Opera back in 1984 with its graphic depiction of execution by chainsaw. And, as David Pountney's striking production for Grange Park Opera proves, Tchaikovsky's rarely staged melodic sleeping beauty has lost none of its power to unsettle the stomach while titillating the ear. The work is timely. The Pushkin poem at the opera's heart concerns an 18th-century Ukrainian war hero whose grab for independence wouldn't be realised until 1991. That the grizzled Hetman (a term for an administrative ruler) is also a relentless torturer who murders his latest girlfriend's father is, to a curious extent, neither here nor there. Throughout the opera, we are rooting for him, if not all, then certainly most of the way. Historically, Mazeppa was a regional leader who defied Peter the Great in the hope of freeing his country from the Russian yoke. Tchaikovsky's romantic subplot concerns Mariya, a young woman who leaves her parents for a life of adventure with the charismatic warlord. When her father tries to shop him to the tsar, the old man is promptly handed over to Mazeppa to be killed. After the Hetman is defeated in battle, Mariya duly loses her mind, expiring on the corpse of a faithful childhood friend. Directorially it's presented as very much a play for today, with Francis O'Connor's efficient, movable set and Tim Mitchell's stark lighting creating an all too recognisable world where oligarchs and mercenaries vie for power and violent death is only a heartbeat away. After an oddly sluggish start, Pountney is quickly into his stride. Repurposing the famous hopak (an energetic Ukrainian dance) as an interlude, he even finds a moment of humour as the lovers embark on a crazy choreographed motorcycle ride, stopping off at a motel for a quickie before hitting the road again. The gruesome violence, when it comes, includes the extraction of several teeth, one eyeball and execution by giant jump leads. Grange Park has assembled a fine cast led by David Stout whose ageing Mazeppa is a cross between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the leader of a chapter of the Hells Angels. Joking aside, it's a moving and dramatically crafted performance wedded to a firm baritone with plenty of heft. Rachel Nicholls' lightning-bolt soprano is well suited to the steely but ultimately vulnerable Mariya, the voice only occasionally unsteady towards the top. John Findon offers sterling support as the hapless Andrei and Luciano Batinic brings nobility to Mariya's father Kochubey, singing through mounting layers of blood and gore. Sara Fulgoni is fierce if a trifle squally as his wife. The only reservation is Mark Shanahan's occasionally routine conducting of the English National Opera Orchestra. Tchaikovsky's fervent score deserves more oomph. Mazeppa is at Grange Park Opera, Surrey, until 6 July
Times
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Mazeppa review — Tchaikovsky meets the Hells Angels
★★★★★The evening began with Wasfi Kani, the irrepressible founder of Grange Park Opera, urging a round of applause for the donors who helped to bankroll the 'Theatre in the Woods'. 'Ten years ago this place was swamp,' she said before pointing out her latest coup (this time against Arts Council England): getting the English National Opera orchestra to play for David Pountney's new production of Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa — as well as for the Grange Park Ring cycle starting next year. It was great to have such an experienced outfit in the pit, although few if any of its members will have played this opera since it was last staged at the London Coliseum in 1984, in an infamous production involving a chainsaw. • Read more opera reviews, guides and interviews Pountney's Grange Park production is only mildly gory, although staging an opera about the Ukrainian commander who stood up to the Russian tsar would itself seem a bid to be newsworthy. Unfortunately, in this (Russian) opera, the elderly statesman is fairly unredeemable, running off with the young daughter of a fellow marshal he mercilessly tortures and executes before disastrously turning against the crown. Pountney and the set designer Francis O'Connor wisely steer clear of specific parallels and set their sights elsewhere: on toxic masculinity. Barrels of radioactive waste pop up on a stage dominated by two mobile watchtowers and wooden and glass fixtures. There's no escape from the military-chauvinistic complex. In fact, here Mazeppa (David Stout) heads a leatherclad Hells Angels-like squad, which allows for a very funny sequence where he mounts a motorbike with the good-girl-gone-bad Mariya (Rachel Nicholls) while chorus members rush past with road signs and telegraph poles. Also laughable is the high camp of a funeral for Mariya's innocence in which her childhood possessions are tossed into a burning coffin. • The best classical concerts and opera: our reviews These moments wonderfully offset some performances of extraordinary emotive power. As Mariya's mother, Lyubov, Sara Fulgoni delivered a wrenching plea to her daughter to stop the execution of her father, Kochubey — a role Luciano Batanic carried with utter conviction and actual sobs in his voice. His profound bass was the perfect match for Stout's Mazeppa, who brought more subtlety to the title role with the vulnerability of his upper register. Delivering consistently clarion top notes and lyricism was the tenor John Findon, who sang Mariya's spurned lover Andrei, cutting through orchestra and chorus at full tilt, as they often were, and to exhilarating effect. The conductor Mark Shanahan quickly steadied occasional moments of overexcitement. Nicholls vividly portrayed Mariya's transformations before expertly taming her powerful soprano to give perhaps the best rendition of the opera's closing lullaby we're likely to hear, especially if Mazeppa continues to be unjustly underperformed.280min including dinner intervalTo Jul 6, Follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
Telegraph
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Mazeppa: Tchaikovsky gets a torture-porn makeover
Surrey's finest fizz – courtesy of nearby vineyard Greyfriars – is the usual tipple of choice at Grange Park Opera, but on a thrilling Saturday night it was vodka, poured neat. The drink is a chaser for Mazeppa, who has already imbibed white powder from a plastic bag hidden in an oversized plush teddy bear. The eponymous anti-hero of Tchaikovsky's lesser-known opera (1884) is a motorbike-riding man-child who is obsessed with power, violence and women. He's also fanatical about freeing Ukraine, of which he is hetman – a form of governor – from 'the protection of Warsaw' and 'the repression of Moscow'. Based on Pushkin's narrative poem Poltava, Tchaikovsky's interpretation is more Netflix biopic than rigorous historical source. For Ukrainians, Ivan Mazeppa (1687-1708) is a national treasure – he featured on a hryvnia banknote – and the retrieval of this work from the vaults marks solidarity. Director David Pountney's production eschews hagiography for graphic realism – and this Mazeppa is stronger for it. Act I opens quietly, with a progressive, 1812-like build. There's talk of garlands, some unreciprocated love. So far, so Romantic. Mazeppa (the brilliantly bewigged baritone David Stout) visits his friend, Cossack judge Vasily Kochubey (bass Luciano Batinić) and his daughter Mariya (soprano Rachel Nicholls) to whom he is godfather. He's the type of godparent Hugh Grant describes in the film About A Boy: 'I'll forget her birthdays until her 18th, when I'll take her out and get her drunk and possibly, let's face it, try and shag her'. Mazeppa does that and more, and while Mariya is portrayed as a willing participant (both consent and pleasure in a glorious motorbike scene), her departure from Russia to Ukraine is the catalyst for political crisis. 'The battle lost by Mazeppa is the battle fought today by Zelensky,' writes Philip Bullock, professor of Russian literature and music at the University of Oxford. Battles are bloody, and so is this production. In Act II, we're transported to Mazeppa's dungeon, where Kochubey and his friend Iskra are beaten and waterboarded. Henchmen appear with pliers, a hand-saw, rubber gloves. Fear is in the implication; the detail is in our imagination. A scalpel descends in time for the supper interval. Our return is greeted with a double execution. Amid this bleak torture porn is some blissful singing. Nicholls, now nursing a large pregnancy bolster, is as dazzling as Mazeppa's gold lamé bedding. In Act III, gas-masked cossacks rise from elevated coffins as zombies, contorted like a Francis Bacon painting. They die again to Tchaikovsky's percussive shots, administered with precision by the English National Opera conducted by Mark Shanahan. The subsequent heartfelt duets are a misnomer; Mazeppa ends in Mariya's madness. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the country's then minister of culture Oleksandr Tkachenko called on the UK to boycott Russian composers until the war was over, writing in a British newspaper that 'We're not talking about cancelling Tchaikovsky, but rather about pausing performances of his works'. Grange Park Opera shows that intelligent engagement has a far greater impact. In rep until July 6;
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Makropulos Affair review – immaculately paced and gripping opera storytelling
Come June, Martyn Brabbins will be directing the orchestra of English National Opera in David Pountney's new production of Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa, a story of wartime Ukraine, at Grange Park in Surrey. Brabbins, who resigned his position as music director of ENO in October 2023, has, however, chosen to make his first return to the pit with Scottish Opera, making his company debut with a score he had not previously studied, Janáček's The Makropulos Affair. The result is a triumph, his immaculate pacing of the music and the sparkling detail in the playing crucial to the gripping storytelling of Olivia Fuchs' production. With three striking sets for each of the three acts by Nicola Turner, beautifully lit by Robbie Butler, and video by Sam Sharples in the style of early 20th century experimental cinema, this staging was seen at WNO in Cardiff three years ago, but the Scottish premiere of this co-production, with a fresh cast, uses Pountney's English translation of the libretto, sung so clearly that the surtitles are almost superfluous. At the heart of the compelling narrative is a riveting performance from Irish soprano Orla Boylan, following up her acclaimed Scottish Opera turn as Jenny Marx in Jonathan Dove's Marx in London! Her chain-smoking, hipflask-toting opera diva, Emilia Marty, is uncaringly indestructible because an elixir has kept her alive since 1575 under various aliases, but always with the initials EM. Around her circle besotted men, company stalwarts Roland Wood as Baron Prus and Alasdair Elliot as Count Hauk-Šendorf and debuts from tenors Ryan Capozzo as Albert Gregor and Michael Lafferty as the Baron's impressionable son Janek. Mark Le Brocq, as legal clerk Vítek, and Catriona Hewitson as his opera-singer daughter, Kristina, draw the audience into the tale with their characterful performances, and the young soprano is a crucial presence throughout, even in scenes where she has little to sing. Those include the introduction of a clever interlude between Act 1 and 2 that uses a recording of Janáček's The Danube as part of the period meta-theatricality essential to both the opera itself and to this production. The combination of the wit of those ingredients, and some much broader humour, with the authority of the orchestral work, culminating in the achingly moving finale as Marty embraces death, is quite remarkable – and makes an unanswerable case for the century-old Makropulos as the most contemporary of Janáček's operas. At Theatre Royal, Glasgow, on 22 February and Festival theatre, Edinburgh, on 27 February and 1 March
