NEWS ARCHIVE

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE PREMIERE!

Lost in the forest, Folklorist Belaretsky gets into the estate of Nadzeya Yanouskaya, the last representative of the rich in the past and noble family. The girl is exhausted by the horror of the invasion of the terrible cavalry led by King Stakh. Family legend has it that Stakh was treacherously killed during a hunt by his friend Yanousky the senior. Belaretsky undertakes to unravel the mystery of the living dead…

This opera has really become a national musical classic. It was created in 1989 in the co-authorship of the composer Vladimir Soltan with the musical director Yaroslav Voshchak and the entire production team. The premiere and further performances on the native stage were given to a full house. For 22 seasons, this title did not leave the stage of the theatre.

‘It is difficult to surpass the success of the first production, but we did not set this goal for ourselves,’ the director Anna Motornaya said. ‘The features of a Gothic novel, a mystical, historical and romantic drama – this unique atmosphere exists both in Karatkevich's novel and in Svetlana Klimkovich's libretto and, of course, comes to life in Soltan's music. Conductor Andrei Ivanou worked with the original score of the work. There are minimum cuts, as there was a great desire to give the composer an opportunity to express himself. Of course, today this work can have many interpretations and variations of the realization of its idea. We talk primarily about the unique atmosphere of Belarus, about its traditions and people, through the reconstruction of rituals, legends and with a low bow to Belarusian art... For all of us, through the score of Vladimir Soltan, the romantic saga of Uladzimir Karatkevich, with its deep subtexts and twists of events, has turned into a surprisingly piercing and painfully true story about people.’

‘King Stakh’s Wild Hunt is one of the best Belarusian operas: the music of amazing beauty, an intriguing plot and, unexpectedly, a score with a difficult story,’ the musical director Andrei Ivanou says. ‘When I started working with the material, of course, I wanted to restore the cuts that had been made during the first production (which is always inevitable), and in the process it turned out that the musical text was fraught with many more mysteries. It came about that the first original score was lost and then restored after the parts. Back in the 2000s, there were attempts to preserve the text, but now we have been faced with the task of carrying out painstaking textual work, finding all the composer's handwritten materials made for the opera, because it is extremely important not only to stage the opera today, but also to preserve it in the most complete form for the future.’

‘King Stakh’s Wild Hunt by Vladimir Soltan is a modern opera, and its production allows us to use appropriate approaches in set design, avoiding traditional opera static scenery,’ says the designer Andrei Merenkov. ‘Here there is an opportunity to create the scenery that literally "works", works as an actor. And the designer is a so-called architect of a new reality, where the characters and the audience get and which changes its shape depending on their actions. The reality created in our production is figurative and symbolic. It is woven of fog and black-and-white memories, and against this background, as if cleared of historical layers, fragments of the origins are revealed, as well as the signs that are even subconsciously read by us as the signs of Belarus...’

An old castle really came to life on the stage, the audience saw its interior with a library, a fireplace, spiral stairs, an art gallery. Of course, there were ominous swamps and a wasteland covered with snow. Great importance was given to the symbols: the clock as the idea of passing time, chess as the leitmotif of the eternal game, in which people are involved at all times.

In the stage masking, the colours and motifs of the Slutsk belts are easily recognized. As to the costumes, the reconstruction technique is again used: it features the prints referring us to the Belarusian icons of the 15-16 centuries. Costume designer Tatyana Lisovenko dressed both main characters and mythical creatures, for example, the ghost of the Blue Woman or the Little Swamp Man. ‘Yanouskaya is probably one of the most lyrical heroines in the Belarusian opera, so her attire is in light colours. The costumes of Belaretsky and Svetsilovich are designed in a secular way, while those of Dubatouk’s and Varona’s are aggressive and brutal red-coloured,’ Tatyana added.

It is impossible not to mention that one of the surprises of the production is a live horse. With it, the performance came to the final, in which, of course, love and spring win...

The premiere of King Stakh’s Wild Hunt featured Vladimir Gromov as Belaretsky, Elena Zolova as Nadzeya Yanouskaya, Sergey Frankovsky as Dubatouk, Stanislav Trifonov as Ales Varona, Andrei Valentii as Ryhor, Taras Prysiazhniuk as Svetsilovich, Victor Mendelev as Berman, Alexander Gelakh and Ilya Pevzner as the Noblemen.

The evening of the second show on 12 July starred Alexander Gontsa as Belaretsky, Tatyana Gavrilova as Nadzeya Yanouskaya, Dmitry Shabetya as Dubatouk, Andrey Selutin as Ales Varona, Victor Mendelev as Berman, Alexander Mikhniuk as Svetsilovich, Alexander Keda as Ryhor, Andrei Matyushonok and Ilya Pevzner as the Noblemen.

Both performances were conducted by Andrei Ivanou.

The production team include musical director Andrei Ivanou, director Anna Motornaya, chorus master Nina Lomanovich, designers Andrei Merenkov (sets), Tatyana Lisovenko (costumes), Evgenii Lisitsyn (lighting), Nella Ogrenich (video), choreographer Olga Kostel. Young artists of the Children's Musical Theatre Studio are engaged in the production (manager Elena Neronskaya). The opera is performed in Belarusian with Russian and English surtitles. The Russian text of the poetic libretto by Svetlana Klimkovich is used for the surtitles. Nadzeya Yanouskaya's aria and Belaretsky's monologue are translated into Russian by Tatyana Mushinskaya. The English rendition is made in accordance with the original source – Svetlana Klimkovich's libretto in Belarusian.

We congratulate the creators, artists, and the audience on the premiere! We wish the production a long life on the stage of the Bolshoi!