The Tsar’s Bride
Царская невеста
The production of 2013 was one of the most notable opera premieres of the decade: Daniel Barenboim, the musical director of the Berlin State Opera, was at the conductor's podium, Olga Peretyatko performed the leading role of Marfa Sobakina, whom the fearsome Tsar himself had set his sights on, Anita Rachvelishvili portrayed Lyubasha, who competes with Marfa for the heart of the oprichnik Gryaznoy.
The timeframe of the story has been radically updated: from the darkness of Russian history to a future built on computer technology. With their help, new oprichniks - 21st-century political technologists - simulate both the Tsar and a suitable bride for him. However, behind all the cynical modern games lies genuine pain, blood, and love.
Actors
Vasily Stepanovich Sobakin, a Novgorod merchant
Marfa, his daughter
Grigory Grigorevich Gryaznoy, oprichnik
Johannes Martin Kränzle
Grigory Lukiyanovich Malyuta Skuratov, oprichnik
Tobias Schabel
Ivan Sergeyevich Lykov, boyar
Pavel Černoch
Lyubasha
Crew
Conductor
Daniel Barenboim
Costume Designer
Elena Zaiceva
Lighting Designer
Gleb Filshtinsky
The performance, which triumphantly opened the 2013/2014 season at the Staatsoper (which was still undergoing renovations to its main building on Unter den Linden and was temporarily housed in the Theater named after Schiller), was born out of the director's desire to reintroduce to Europeans a Russian masterpiece unjustly forgotten. According to Chernyakov himself, it is "a very comprehensible work with a tight, logical dramaturgy, vividly portrayed characters, based on a well-crafted play, a melodrama." By transposing the 1899 opera (set in the autumn of 1572) into an ominously ironic futuristic setting, Chernyakov continues the development of his favorite theme: the collision of a counterfeit artificial world and scorchingly genuine emotions.
Dmitri Tcherniakov: The Russian Opera
Language
Russian
Runtime
2 hours 32 minutes
2013
12+
Stills
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