Music Review : ‘Iolanta’ Exhumed : Gergiev Closes Philharmonic Season With Obscure Tchaikovsky

No, no, no. Not “Iolanthe.”

“Iolanta.”

The vehicle for the final offering of the Los Angeles Philharmonic season at the Music Center on Thursday wasn’t the Gilbert and Sullivan opera about a tenor who must cope with the problem of being half mortal and half fairy. The vehicle was Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta.”

“Iolanta”?

You know. The one-act Russian fantasy about the chronically pure, chronically blind 15th-Century princess in Southern France who finds light--literally as well as figuratively--in the tenoral love of a Burgundian knight.

You don’t know? Actually, we didn’t know either.

“Iolanta” isn’t on the greatest-hits list in many houses around the world. But it does happen to be a historic relic of the Kirov Theater, a.k.a. Maryinsky, in St. Petersburg. As such, it also happens to be a specialty of Valery Gergiev, current king of the Kirov and jet-propelled man of the hour everywhere when it comes to the music of Russia.

If Gergiev is in the vicinity, “Iolanta” can’t be far behind. And here it was, presumably receiving its California premiere 103 years after its creation.

Our orchestra spared little expense to validate this somewhat belated act of romantic homage. The management set up a fancy concert performance enlisting five major artists from the Kirov, plus five support singers and Paul Salamunovich’s Los Angeles Master Chorale. The Russian-language discourse was embellished, moreover, with hard-to-read supertitle translations projected atop the proscenium.

For 90 intermissionless minutes of welcome adventure, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion resounded in a lot of amorous bombast, gushing lyricism and ethnic exotica. The simplistic plot--libretto courtesy of Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest--unraveled in thundering conflicts, agitated exchanges and, as needed, crashing climaxes. The love music exuded a strange martial tinge, and the ultimate, presumably ethereal ode to light stayed patently earthbound.

To ears unaccustomed to this particular onslaught, Tchaikovsky’s last opera would seem to deal primarily in formulas, not inspirations. All hope of catharsis has been abandoned.

The embattled composer wasn’t exactly ecstatic with his own accomplishment here. He admitted that some passages borrowed too freely from his own compositions, most notably “The Enchantress.” He conceded that “Medieval dukes and knights and ladies capture my imagination but not my heart.”

Rimsky-Korsakov came up with derision worthy of a backwoods Beckmesser after attending the final rehearsal. Richard Taruskin, Grove’s Tchaikovsky scholar in residence, condemns “Iolanta” with faint praise: “The magic in this opera is to be found in its decorator colors.”

In the cool light of 1995, “Iolanta” emerges more a curio than a work of genius. Even in its most trite and most vulgar indulgences, however, it remains a fascinating curio. And even a scoffer must savor a performance predicated on authentic urgency, as this one emphatically was.

When Gergiev conducts Tchaikovsky’s throbbing cliches--without a baton, incidentally--each quiver hints at an emotional revelation. He is a flamboyantly persuasive fellow on a podium. The assembled performers, both foreign and native, responded most earnestly to the Muscovite maestro’s urgings. He knows how to make little music sound big.

The central singers could not attest to glorious standards in contemporary St. Petersburg. But the assembled spirits were willing, even if the vocal cords were not.

Replacing the reportedly indisposed Galina Gorchakova, Tatiana Novikova brought the virtues of warmth and simplicity to the title role. She also brought a soft-grained soprano that tended to lose stability and focus under pressure.

Gegam Grigorian, remembered from the unheralded visit of the Spendarian State Opera to the Wiltern Theatre in 1989, mustered imposing fervor but little finesse as her knight in white tie and tails. Bulat Minjilkiev sounded both rough and tentative in the basso utterances of King Rene. On baritone terrain, Alexander Gergalov seemed overpowered by the rolling cantilena of Duke Robert, the heroine’s disinterested betrothed, while Nikolai Putilin settled for gruff force as the quasi-Asian medico on courtly duty.

Irina Mishura-Lekhtman, Elissa Johnston and Tihana Herceg sang the imitative trios of the royal domestics sweetly. Greg Fedderly and Richard Bernstein of the Music Center Opera dispatched incidental duties with elan.

“Iolanthe” might have been a more amusing finale. But “Iolanta,” flaws and all, was more interesting.

* The Los Angeles Philharmonic repeats “Iolanta” tonight at 8 and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion , 135 N. Grand Ave. Tickets $6-$50. (213) 850-2000.