The Brooklyn Record
About twenty-five years ago when I became interested in Russian Opera, I took out of the library a Modern Library Giant of all the works of Pushkin. Alas, Modern Library regular and Giant are out of print, and Grand Army Plaza does not have a copy. On a recent Tower Annex bargain basement shopping trip, I purchased Dargomizhsky’s “The Stone Guest.” “The Stone Guest” is one of the four “Little Tragedies” all of which were in that Modern Library Giant. With the help of a sympathetic librarian I was able to find “Mozart and Salieri,” which is one of the little tragedies, but a poor name for a book that contains all four of the little tragedies translated by Antony Wood with a foreword by Elaine Feinstein.
I told the librarian that I believed, quite correctly, that there were four little tragedies, and that I believed, quite correctly, that all had been turned into operas. I could name three, with their composers, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of the fourth.
I should have consulted my notes on the back of my old Melocliya “Mozart and Salieri.” Now there’s the, gomizhky “The Stone Guest; Darimsky’s “Mozart and Salieri”; and Rachmaninov’s (latest spelling although one new album has Rakhmaninov) “The Miserly Knight” and the one I forgot and have never heard is Cesar Cui’s “A Feast in Time of Plague. In fact, I don’t know if there’s even a recording of this opera. Likewise this is the tragedy I least remembered though I just love that title. In the foreword, Elaine Feinstein says: “We see all the protagonists of the “Little Tragedies” in the grip of feverish, virtually pathological, excitement.” It must say something pathological about me, but I have a lot of sympathy for “Walsingham” who feasts with friends and revelers while those he loves, his wife and mother die of the plague. What else could he do? He certainly wasn’t going to find the cure. Walsingham at least smiles in the face of death. She says, and she’s right that he is delusional and clashing with external reality. For that matter so do all the little tragedians. In the “Miserly Knight,” the Baron is so miserly that he doesn’t even want his money to go to his son after he dies. However, it’s not just his son, but anyone. If he could, the Baron would take his riches to the next world. Salieri’s envy of Mozart is based on the between genius and mere talent. Mozart will destroy music because no one after him will be able to produce anything as worthy. Salieri poisons him. Pushkin has Mozart say that both he and Salieri are geniuses, and: “Genius and evil doing don’t go together. Surely that is so? This just as Salieri slips the poison into Mozart’s wine. At the end, Salieri concedes that Mozart is right. Evil doing and genius are incompatible, but Salieri denies that he is a genius. Oh! Well neither of them ever met Wagner. Evil doing and genius are very compatible. Last but not least is Don Juan. This Don Juan is not Don Giovanni. His lust ap pears to be ready to end with this Donna Anna, but he has already had an affair with Laura and killed her lover. In this Don Juan, the Com mendatore was Donna Anna’s hus band. Don Juan will beard the statue in his own home, but he is brought to hell, just as in Mozart, by the statue.
Now Antony Wood talks about the little tragedies being performed yet both he and Ms. Feinstein believe these are theatrical outlines. The are really little poems about one emotion. At best, I can see these as radio plays, but that genre is as dead as the proverbial doornail. Simon Karlinsky in an essay about Pushkin more or less says that no matter how good the translation: “Every Pushkin poem translated into another language turns into a more or less elegant frog cruelly deprived of whatever made her a princess, in the original incarnation! This should not obscure Mr. Wood’s accomplishment. In each of the “Little Tragedies” there’s at least one speech by the protagonist that puts forth the horror of the personal depravity which makes us pull back from the character, and realize we don’t want to be like this man. This goes even for Walsingham who cannot avoid his death even were he to change. When the Miser accuses his son of wanting· to murder him after the son has just rejected someone’s (someone my foot, it’s “The Jew”, Pushkin was very anti-semitic) suggestion to do just that; when Don Juan pours out his lust to Donna Anna; and above all, for me, when Salieri realizes his inferiority.
Now if the pieces cannot be performed as theater, for me the question becomes can the operas take their place? They certainly have the advantage that the language of Pushkin is maintained. In fact, Gomizhky’s “Stone Guest” is verbatim taken from Pushkin and set to music. The notes for the Rimsky “Mozart and Salieri” say that this too is almost a verbatim libretto from Pushkin. Both Dargomizhky and Rimsky wrote, or lifted from Pushkin, their own librettos. Now I know there was an old recording of the “Miserly Knight.” It may be deleted. On a recent trip to J&R I found a “Miserly Knight” on “Chant du Monde”the same label that issued “The Stone Guest,” so certainly the opera is available.
If I remember correctly it is in the same style as the others. Knowing Rachmaninov probably less recitative and more vocal, but if I heard it once it’s a lot. Geoffrey Norris in Groves tells us that like the other two it is word for word and Rachmaninov conducted the premier. Cesar Cui gets a paragraph to himself because he is probably the least known, although Dargomizhky is certainly not a household name. He and Rimsky finished, or rather orchestrated Dargomizhky’s “Stone Guest” due to Dargomizhky’s death. His “Feast In the Time Of Plague” is according to Geoffrey Norris in Groves also verbatim. He wrote an opera “Angelo” which, I believe, is on the same subject as “La Gioconda.” There was an old Capitol recording. I heard it once.
That is long deleted, and I should have bought it when I had the chance.
Now you can all figure out the Pushkin in this, but where do the eggs come in? You remember “Cav and Pag.” Affectionately known as “Ham and Eggs” because many a company has survived by programming these two shorties. Ever since then impresarios have been lookng for another combination of “Ham and Eggs.” The Met did “Bluebeard’s Castle” with “Erwartung.”
The City Opera has tried to combine “Carmina Burana” with “Oedipus Rex.” Nothing really works. Could combining any of the two “Little Tragedies” work?
Frankly, I doubt it! There are really no arias in these operas, and there are virtually no choruses. Through it is certainly an idea.
“Erwartung” is a monodrama. I mean no choruses and not even any people. I think it would be fun to see a major house, probably The City Opera, rather than the Met give it a go. The Glimmerglass in Cooperstown has been doing somewhat off beat operas. Who knows? Admittedly, in addition, these are chamber operas yet they were, and I assumed are, staged at the Bolshoi and the Mariyinsky. Rachmaninov also wrote a Pushkin opera “Aleko” which is more “operatic.” Ham and Eggs I doubt it, but maybe we could at least have one round of “Pushkin and Eggs.” If not a major – how about some minor opera company taking a chance. Oh! and nothing should stop you from reading Wood’s translations. Pushkin without eggs!
Oh! by the way I just received my latest copy of “Opera News” with the title on the cover: “Is American Chamber Opera Dead?” If so you’re never going to hear The Little Tragedy Operas. Certainly, you’re not going to hear them at the Met!