Russian Gambling on DVD & CD
by Peter Grahame Woolf

Two Gambling Operas

Gambling has been a potent symbol of misdirected passion and fatal dependency on chance for Russian writers since Pushkin's 1833 story The Queen of Spades.

Tchaikovsky's opera treats the theme powerfully and this DVD presents the drama of Hermann's breakdown and his doomed relationship with Liza graphically, in a traditional St Petersburg staging. Gegam Grigorian inhabits the mind of the obsessed and finally crazed Hermann convincingly and Maria Gulegina partners him strongly. Minor characters are taken by great Russian singers Sergei Leiferkus and Olga Borodina. The Countess, who is frightened to death by Hermann, is well portrayed by Ludmila Filatova in this fairly straightforward and naturalistic production. Valery Gergiev is attentive to every detail in Tchaikovsky's score and achieves great tension with the Kirov Opera Chorus & Orchestra. Musically, you won't better this account. The picture, although not as sharply focussed as on some DVDs, is adequate. Philips DVDs have the convenience of subtitles with choice of language, & the booklet for Pique Dame is more informative than many, with detailed synopsis and (different) essays in several languages (not translated, however).

But Pique Dame is an opera which lends itself more readily than many to radical interpretations, e.g. a notably successful touring one by Welsh National Opera (with the skeleton of the Countess sharing a bed with Hermann!) and, most memorably for me, a great production at Stuttgart (see our fully illustrated reviews of these productions seen at Oxford and Stuttgart).

Regrettably the Stuttgart Pique Dame to my best knowledge was not filmed, nor is there yet a DVD of Prokofiev's demanding action-packed gambling opera. I remember being dazzled by the music and drama on the only occasion I had heard it before, chancing upon The Gambler long ago in Amsterdam, with only the briefest synopsis to help (Dutch being as incomprehensible to an Englishman as Russian).

The Gambler (1915/28) was based on Dostoyevsky's black novella, with the central relationship, Alexey and Paulina, equally sure to fail as that of Hermann and Liza. But here money rules everyone, and the opera ends not with deaths of the protagonists, but instead with Paulina throwing Alexey's vast winnings in his face."The Gambler holds up a mirror to a society corrupted by the pursuit of easy money and racing toward oblivion" (David Gutman).

Prokofiev admitted to having chosen the most radical musical language possible and he later tempered it in his 1928 revision, having decided that "a great deal of modernistic padding - - only complicated the vocal line". A press report preceding the premiere of The Gambler, which was in the event cancelled, had opined that the "cacophony of sounds, with its incredible intervals and discordant notes, may be very interesting to those who love powerful musical sensations, but it is completely uninteresting to the singers, who in the course of a whole season have barely managed to learn their parts".

Prokofiev's method was so original that one writer dubbed it as devoid of melody. His conversational style, which has similarities with Janacek's, does not hold up the swift action with arias. Prokofiev builds to a stunning last act in which his anti-hero gambles and breaks the bank. Instead of using an opera chorus, as does Tchaikovsky in his gaming scene, Prokofiev has in the casino a huge cast of individuals, each interjecting phrases with their own separate lines.

These Kirov/Gergiev CDs of The Gambler complement Pique Dame ideally. They arrived for review auspiciously at the beginning of 2003, the 50th anniversary year of the composer's death, and one which promises exposure to wall-to-wall Prokofiev (for more information refer to the Boosey & Hawkes site)!

With Gergiev in charge of the same Kirov forces as for Pique Dame on DVD, this is one of the most worth-while of Universal's limited period reduced price 'outstanding opera recordings'. His distinguished cast of Russian singers have mastered the daunting difficulties of Prokofiev's frenetic vocal lines with apparent ease, so that The Gambler makes now a strong case as one of the composer's most original and exhilarating works.

The Universal Classics CD libretti provide full texts and translations; for The Gambler the original is only in Cyrillic Russian - surprising how quickly one gets used to following it - but it is impossible to keep one's place whilst turning the casino scene's sixty-five pages! The Gambler deserves revival in the opera house and a DVD would be desirable.

Notes:

1. The musical language of Prokofiev's The Gambler can be sampled on Amazon.com

2. Another great bargain amongst Universal's special offers is Prokofiev's neglected later opera Semyon Kotko, premiered in 1940, and reviewed when the Kirov brought it to London, the two CDs presented by Philips with a lavish 300 page booklet.

© Peter Grahame Woolf 2003.

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