Opera Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov "Christmas Eve" opera in 4 acts World famous Mariinsky Ballet and Opera Theatre - Opera and Concert Hall
Running time: 3 hours
Schedule for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov "Christmas Eve" opera in 4 acts 2022
Composer: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Principal Chorus Master: Andrei Petrenko Musical Director: Maestro Valery Gergiev Musical Preparation: Marina Mishuk Lighting Designer: Gleb Filshtinsky Stage Director: Olga Malikova Set Designer: Kseniya Kiseliova Costume Designer: Varvara Yegorova Choreography: Nadezhda Kalinina Piano: Marina Mishuk Principal Chorus Master: Pavel Teplov Costume Designer: Varvara Chuvina
Orchestra: Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra
Performed in Russian with synchronised English supertitles
Premiere of this production: 31 December 2008, Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall, St Petersburg
opera in four acts
The Performance has two intermissions
Performed in Russian with synchronised English
supertitles
World premiere: 28 November (10 December) 1895,
Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg
Music: Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov Libretto by the composer Production by Olga Malikova
(2008)
Musical Director – Valery Gergiev Stage Director – Olga
Malikova Scenography – Kseniya Kiseliova Costume Designer – Varvara
Yegorova Choreography – Nadezhda Kalinina
Director
Olga Malikova about her performance: "It is no secret that right
after the first edition of Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka Gogol was
acknowledged by everyone as a wonderful comic writer. Everyone was laughing,
starting with typesetters who "when seeing the author of the Evenings would
start tittering and chortle facing away to the wall" (from Gogol?s letter to
Pushkin, 1831). However, only a few managed to understand that the main theme of
the Evenings was intrusion of the demonic forces into the human life. It was
Rimsky-Korsakov who, quite unpredictably for the public, introduced Slavonic and
mythological beliefs connected with the birth of the sun after the winter
solstice into Gogol?s story. He defined the genre of his opera as a TRUE
STORY-CHRISTMAS CAROL and saturated his creation with Ukrainian folklore thus
emphasizing its genre tincture. In my artistic approach I wanted to go away
from the "fairy tale" and join "Dikanka," "Petersburg," and "the air space" by
the same place of action. To put it short, inhabitants of Dikanka village will
tell the audience a beautiful story about the CHRISTMAS OF LOVE. The fact is,
love is nothing else but the top revelation of harmony, to which the people had
been striving in all times. What do I want to tell the audience by my
performance? First of all, I want to remind of our national traditions, our
roots that have grown through Heathenism into Christianity; secondly, to show
that those demonic forces and human vice which Gogol personifies through his
characters are nothing but the evil which lives in a person as such. It is that
very evil that inspires us to make ill-thought and often silly or vicious
actions. But each of us has something bright and light inside, which elevates us
spiritually and gives us strength and inspires for heroic exploits. This is the
very fruitful force of love which is capable to overcome the dark forces of evil
and create miracles."
To continue the tradition of New Year performances
for children, the Mariinsky Theater is preparing a premiere of Christmas
Eve performance on the stage of the Concert Hall. Elements of decorations
and costumes are being made at the theater’s master shops. It looks like the new
premiere is going to turn into a truly bright event in the chain of the New Year
holidays and premieres.
On the history of the opera
creation: Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov got the idea to write an opera
after Gogol`s novel Christmas Eve at the times when Petr Tchaikovsky
presented his Blacksmith Vakula under the motto "Art is eternal, life is too
short" for a musical competition that he won. Under the competition conditions,
the opera which had got the first place was to appear in the repertoire of the
Mariinsky Theater. The premiere took place on November 24, 1876. Thirty years
later, on December 29, 1906, the second edition of the opera was presented on
the same stage under the name Lenticels. On April 29, 1880, another opera after
the same story, N. Soloviev`s Vakula, the Blacksmith, which had been created for
the same competition that Tchaikovsky won, was shown at the Petersburg Kononov
Hall; it was performed by participants of the Music and Drama circle, amateur
actors. Despite the fact that two authors had already addressed the same
novel, the magic of this writing would not get off Rimsky-Korsakov`s mind.
However, due to the nicety of his character, afraid to afflict Tchaikovsky,
Rimsky-Korsakov had never started to write Christmas Eve until after
Tchaikovsky`s death. Only in the late spring of 1893 had he begun his work
keeping it in secret even from many of his acquaintances. Keeping most of
the novel`s plotlines, Rimsky-Korsakov had supplemented them with many scenes
and characters that Gogol had never had. All the previous operas (The Snow
Maiden, Mlada, and The May Night) might have preceded the appearance of the
semi-pagan rituals in the new writing, which remained in the Christian
festivities of the Christmas night; these were the Devil, Witch (Solokha) and
Sorcerer (Patsuk), Kolyada and Ovsen, stars and devilry. This way, Gogol`s story
became interlaced with the anachronistic pagan legends. However, later, in
his "Chronicles of my musical life" Rimsky-Korsakov noted: "…On the one hand, my
libretto was following Gogol strictly, not excluding his language and
expressions; on the other hand, it contained in its fantastical part a lot of
outside things, enforced by me. For me and those willing to go deeply inside,
this connection was obvious; for the public, it turned out to be absolutely
obscure, unnecessary and even interfering. My infatuation with myths and putting
them along with Gogol`s stories was, no doubt, my mistake, but this mistake did
give me a chance to write a lot of interesting music." Indeed, the music of
Christmas Eve created a vast space not only for interpretation of the
common life scenes, but also for presenting a fantasy faerie show. A hundred
years ago, in the first third of the 19th century, from 1803 to 1807, F. Kauer`s
fairy-comic opera The Mermaid after a story of K. F. Gensler, an Austrian
writer, had a great success on the stage of the St Petersburg Bolshoy Theater.
Interpreted in the Russian mood, it had such a great success that nearly every
year its continuation with music of Russian composers, S. Davydov and K. Kavos,
appeared on stage. By contemporaries` testimonies, those were grandiose faerie
shows with transformations, volcanic fountains, rivers coming out of their
shores, an underwater kingdom, monsters and ghosts. 90 years later,
Rimsky-Korsakov seemed to have brought the genre of the "magic" opera back on
stage, but in a different hypostasis. A true master, he created mythological
"portraits" of Slavic daemons and "devilry" creating magnificent contrast
musical pictures of Vakula`s flight on a devil to Petersburg and his return to
Dikanka. We get a nearly physical and phonic feeling of the frosty air, the
beauty of the calm winter sky, the round dance of stars and celestial bodies,
the magic picture of the dawn, and, all of sudden, the rushing in rasp and howl
of the devilish chase. These magnificent musical sketches have always been
arousing directing, choreographic and scenographic fantasy of the producers,
opening immense freedom for the most incredible stage solutions. M.
Godlevskaya
Synopsis: Late one Christmas Eve, the beekeeper Rudy Panko invites the audience
to a "little party" where the lads and lasses will tell a story "about all sorts
and everything!". The Dikanka villagers begin their story... On the night before
Christmas the witch Solokha is beginning to perform the ancient traditional
rituals. At that moment, her companion the Devil appears. He is furious with her
son Vakula for mocking him - he has "recently daubed the church vestibule for a
laugh, as if a Devil could be chased away by wattle and wood." To get back at
him, the Devil persuades Solokha to steal the moon and call up a blizzard. When
it gets dark, Chub will stay home by the stove, and Vakula will be unable to
visit his daughter, the beautiful Oksana. Solokha agrees. She is more fond of
Chub - a wealthy widower - than of any of the other Dikanka cossacks, and she is
happy to get on his good side. The Devil and Solokha call up a blizzard and
steal the moon. Panas, in celebratory mood, is thrown out of the tavern by the
landlord, and decides to continue his Christmas Eve at Chub's. Chub, however,
has already left his house and talks Panas into going with him to the Sexton's
for Christmas pudding. He promises that there will be excellent saffron
moonshine. The blizzard gets stronger, and blows Panas and Chub off the
road. Vakula is also not abed. He is wandering indecisively around Chub's
house: How can he find out if the proud Oksana loves him? Lost in the dark,
Panas returns to the tavern, while Chub, lost in the dark and unable to find the
Sexton's house, heads home. However, he bumps into Vakula outside his house:
"No, it's not my house. The smith wouldn't be wandering around there", he
thinks, and sets off to call on Solokha. Vakula, finally throwing off his
doubts, decides to have it out with Oksana. The blizzard stops. Oksana is
preening in front of the mirror, admiring her reflection. Vakula enters
unnoticed and gazes with adoration on her beauty. But it is far from easy to win
her heart. She teases Vakula, pretending that she is bored with him and is
waiting for her girlfriends to go wassailing, where there will be boys who "will
tell some wonderful stories". Here they are, and one of her friends, Odarka, is
wearing new slippers. Oksana whines that nobody will give her a present like
that. When Vakula says that he is ready to get her any slippers she could
possibly desire, Oksana promises in front of everyone that "if he gets hold of
the slippers that the mother Tsaritsa herself wears, then I'll marry him."
After the freezing cold, Solokha and the Devil warm up inside with songs and
dances. Suddenly, there is a loud knock on the door. Solokha barely has time to
hide the Devil with a sack when in walks the Village Head. He was also invited
to Christmas Pudding with the Sexton, but seeing the light in Solokha's house,
he has decided to pass the evening with her. He only has time to drink a cup of
pepper vodka when there comes another knock on the door. Solokha hides the
village head inside another sack, and opens the door to the Sexton. Rather than
wait for his guests to brave the blizzard, the Sexton has decided he would
prefer to see Solokha. But his wooing is also cut short by another loud knock on
the door, this time from Chub. Hiding the sexton in the last empty sack, Solokha
welcomes her favoured guest coquettishly. However, Vakula comes home
unexpectedly, and the seriously worried Solokha is forced to hide Chub in the
sack that already contains the Sexton. Vakula wants to take the sacks out of the
house, seeing as "tomorrow is a holiday". But the sacks turn out to be very
heavy. The stubborn smith manages to hoist them on his back nonetheless, and he
heads for the smithy. The boys and girls are celebrating the Holy Night. All
around there are games, jokes, and masked faces. The drunken Panas disports
himself, and Oksana frolics. When she sees Vakula, she says again to him: "Get
those slippers, smith, and I will marry you!" But Vakula wants the proud maiden
to stop tormenting him, and he decides to leave the village. Everyone becomes
concerned lest the smith harm himself or even kill himself in his grief. The
Woman With Ordinary Nose and the Woman With Purple Nose run to spread the gossip
throughout the village. One tells that the smith has hanged himself, the other
that he has thrown himself under the ice. Oksana, too, is worried - what if his
grief should lead him to love another, and to call her the most beautiful in the
world? Then she notices the sacks that Vakula has left behind. The youths untie
them, and Solokha's confused admirers emerge one by one - Chub, the Village
Head, and the Sexton. "Ah, Solokha. The woman's a trickster! The woman's a
devil!" the crowd shouts out with uncontrollable laughter. Vakula, taking
with him only one small sack, has gone to seek advice from the old sorcerer
Patsyuk. Rumour has it that he knows all the devils. The smith asks Patsyuk to
show him how to find the Devil, the only one who can help with his grief. "You
won't have to go far when you have the Devil on your shoulders," Patsyuk answers
serenely. Astonished, Vakula watches as the Devil climbs out of his sack and
offers to help him on the condition that he sell his soul. Pretending to be
willing to sign his promise in blood, Vakula suddenly grabs the Devil by the
tail and pulls out a cross. Under the threat of the sign of the cross, the Devil
agrees to do whatever the smith asks of him. Vakula orders the Devil to take him
to the Tsaritsa, and they set off. In the air, a violin play Christmas Eve.
The planets fly through the sky. The sorcerers, nymphs, and witches of Kiev are
gathering for a Sabbath. Among them are Patsyuk and Solokha. They create a
demonic wassail. When they see Vakula with the Devil, the try to block his path,
but the smith holds tightly to his cross. A fanfare sounds, and the boys and
girls scuttle and scamper about, rushing to get ready to present St Petersburg
and the Tsaritsa herself. The ladies of the court dance a shapely Polonaise with
the Zaporozhian Cossacks. The Tsaritsa appears, and Vakula falls at her feat.
"If only my lass could wear a pair of slippers like those!" The Tsaritsa is
charmed by the simple honesty of the smith, and she gives him her finest
slippers. Christmas Eve is coming to an end. Soon the sun will be up. The
unclean forces hurry to hide from the dawn. Vakula is carried back by the Devil,
in his hands is his precious package for Oksana. Daylight comes and the maidens
enter, rolling a wheel - the symbol of the sun, of the earth's fertility, of
light, and of life. Bells ring out - Christmas and Love have come to the
world. Oksana is sad. She has already realised that no boy will love her as
well as Vakula. Meanwhile, the two Women argue in front of Chub as to whether
the smith has hanged himself or drowned himself. Their argument turns to a
fight, and the Women run away. Chub also drags himself off home, leaving Oksana
alone. She does not notice Vakula, who has at last heard that she loved him. The
beautiful maiden no longer needs any slippers, she would be happy to marry the
smith without them. Chub agrees with this - he cannot forget the faithless
Solokha, and the presents Vakula has brought from Petersburg - a coloured belt
and a sheepskin hat - are particularly fine. Chub calls together the village to
tell them there will soon be a wedding. Everyone rejoices at Vakula's
return. Then Vakula presents to the audience the beekeeper Rudy Panko. He is
the one, with his "golden quill", who has written this fantastic story about
Christmas Eve.
Schedule for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov "Christmas Eve" opera in 4 acts 2022
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