OPERA REVIEW : A Problematic ‘Khovanshchina’ in S.F.

Terence McEwen’s tenure at the helm of the San Francisco Opera was cautious and conservative, brief and baffling. It wasn’t particularly brilliant.

McEwen did muster a few undisputed triumphs, however. One of the most memorable was the first local production, back in 1984, of Mussorgsky’s sadly neglected “Khovanshchina.”

It is a very Russian opera, in tone, in emotional thrust and in historical ambience. That may help explain its neglect outside the Soviet Union.

Its sprawling, melodramatic convolutions threaten to alienate audiences in this country. They know little enough about their own Civil War, never mind the conflicts between the old and new orders in Moscow at the time of Peter the Great.

It might be useful to perform so forbidding a challenge in English. That is what the Metropolitan Opera did in 1950. Unfortunately, the raw and pungent sound of the Russian language, so crucial to the idiom, gets lost in translation. Supertitles, though distracting, may be a valid compromise in this especially difficult case.

The original San Francisco production was a stylish ensemble effort, led with passionate conviction by the German conductor Gerd Albrecht. The strong cast was dominated by Matti Salminen, wildly ferocious as the lusty Prince Khovansky, and Helga Dernesch, broodingly poignant as the mysterious Marfa.

None of these paragons returned for the current revival, which was planned by McEwen but executed by his successor, Lotfi Mansouri. Of the newcomers, only the conductor achieved an unmitigated success.

Yuri Simonov brought genuine Bolshoi authority to the podium. Using the splendid Shostakovich edition, he sustained blazing urgency without sacrificing lyrical detail. He worked on a broad scale, inspiring heroic efforts from both the orchestra and the somewhat underpopulated chorus, trained by Ian Robertson. He accompanied the agitated singers with reasonable tact.

His “Don Carlo” at the Music Center Opera last April represented an obvious case of miscasting. “Khovanshchina” found him in his estimable element.

Nicolai Ghiaurov, the new Khovansky, obviously knows his way around the role. He enacted it on Saturday with authentic theatrical flair supported by reasonably fervent vocalism. His characterization of the brutal leader of the Streltsy musketeers seemed oddly benign, however, and, at 61, his once-formidable basso shows signs of wear.

Dolora Zajick sang gloriously as Marfa--with warm, suave, generous, rolling mezzo-soprano tone, and with no discomfort at either range extreme. Unfortunately, she did little but stand and sing. She acted with neither her body nor her face. She didn’t even act with her voice.

Timothy Noble returned as the scheming boyar, Shaklovity, his dramatic intensity intact but his hearty baritone now strained at the top. Gwynne Howell again brought dark, mellow and monochromatic tone to the saintly platitudes of old Dosifei--platitudes once enlivened by Feodor Chaliapin.

The secondary roles were all in new hands. John Treleaven, the British tenor, made his San Francisco debut as a properly nasty, improperly tight-voiced Prince Golitsin. Michael Myers whined even more than necessary as Andrei, Khovansky’s weakling son. Maria Fortuna squeaked the plaints of his would-be victim, Emma. Steven Cole offered a pointed character study of the terrified Scrivener.

Kathleen Miller of the San Francisco Ballet appeared as the deft soloist in the hoochy-kooch dance of the Persian slaves, choreographed by Carlos Carvajal. The lush music for this divertissement, incidentally, was arranged not by Shostakovich but by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Sonja Frisell directed the complex traffic efficiently if rather mechanically. The marvelously atmospheric sets and generic costumes were facsimiles of famous designs created for La Scala in 1925 by Nicola Benois. Thomas J. Munn illuminated the old canvases with poetic sensitivity.