UK Edition
Review
Sex, demons and cannibalism in Glasgow – The Fiery Angel, review
Sexual obsession, demon summoning, brawling, cannibalism – hardly a typical Glasgow Sunday afternoon. They were on stage all the same in Prokofiev’s seldom performed opera The Fiery Angel, however, part of Scottish Opera’s Sunday Series of operas in concert. That description doesn’t do justice to this ambitious almost-staging by director Max Hoehn, without sets but with virtually everything else, and making full use of City Halls’ aisles, balconies and choir seats. And with a storyline as extravagant and dreamlike as The Fiery Angel’s, leaving lots to the imagination wasn’t such a bad thing.
The plot revolves around the sexually hysterical Renata, in desperate search of the human incarnation of the beloved fiery angel who had visited her as a child, aided by long-suffering knight Ruprecht, plus encounters with a wizard in denial, and even Faust and Mephistopheles knocking back an unconventional aperitif. Its final scene – in which Renata’s obsession infects novices in a convent to ear-shattering effect – tops off Prokofiev’s work to wildly exuberant effect, as well as bringing together its huge cast.
For this production, that cast had been partly drawn from Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, as the latest in a long-running series of collaborations with Scottish Opera. Thomas Kinch was strong as Jakob Glock, and his fellow student Jerome Knox was a wide-eyed Faust, alongside an oily, sly Mephistopheles from (non-student) Luke Sinclair.
In its central roles, however, The Fiery Angel is perilously demanding, and Scottish Opera had wisely drafted in a clutch of Slavic professionals. Svetlana Sozdateleva was astonishingly good in the gruelling central role of Renata, in what’s effectively a succession of mad scenes. But she conveyed brilliantly the character’s obsession and madness, as well as her vulnerability and even a sense of ecstatic martyrdom as she’s sentenced to burn at the stake.
Evez Adbulla popped up all over the hall as Ruprecht, finding a nice balance between cocksure confidence and (often sexual) neediness. Both sometimes struggled to project, however, above conductor Mikhail Agrest’s sonorous Scottish Opera Orchestra, alert, vivid and fizzing with energy, despite a few ragged edges.
Vocal balance was a problem, too, for Alexei Tanovitski’s Inquisitor, who sentences Renata to burn. He couldn’t carry above Prokofiev’s cacophonous orchestra, and struggled to convey a convincing character too – a shame, since the final act depends almost entirely on his threatening presence.
But it was a suitably wild, extrovert performance, nonetheless, and one whose simple but very effective staging brought new insights to a rarely presented opera.