From Russia, With Verve

SAN FRANCISCO--Michael Tilson Thomas is ending his seventh season as music director of the San Francisco Symphony with a three-week, well-mixed festival of Russian music. It is an opportunity for a native Angeleno to explore his own heritage (Tilson Thomas’ Russian-born grandparents were stars of Yiddish theater in New York), as well as to demonstrate some of the authentic Russian tradition he picked up as a student at USC, where he accompanied the master classes of Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky. But really it is an excuse to present “Mlada,” the festival’s flamboyant final work, which was given the first of three semi-staged performances Thursday night at Davies Symphony Hall.

There isn’t anything quite like Rimsky-Korsakov’s surprisingly little-known, over-the-top opera-ballet, given its premiere at the Mariinsky Theater. in 1892. Actually there is a lot like it, starting with Stravinsky’s “Firebird” and “Rite of Spring,” and continuing on to other exotic, groundbreaking, early 20th century music by Prokofiev, Debussy and maybe even Richard Strauss. But nothing quite so wonderfully wacky. And, of course, Rimsky got there first.

The inspiration for “Mlada,” a mythic tale of pagan, pre-Christian Russia, was Wagner’s mythic, orchestrally extravagant, special-effects-laden “Ring” cycle. But Rimsky also had peculiarly Russian notions as well. The story of the ghost of Princess Mlada--who comes back to avenge her murder and lead her noble prince, Yaromir, to the spirit world, where the gods of good and evil busily compete--is an extravagant pageant staged through dance and opera, full of spectacular opportunities for large chorus and corps de ballet. Mlada is portrayed by a ballerina; Yaromir, a heroic tenor. What they all have in common is the orchestra, which is huge and the astonishing glory of the work.

The familiar Rimsky of “Scheherazade,” written a few years earlier, is everywhere present. But the composer here goes much further. The wild scenes of pagan gods are a prescient explosion of the kind of barbaric musical Modernism that Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Bartok would years later exploit. But they are also full of jaw-dropping, oddball exoticism.

When three harps invite into their orgy of glissandi a pair of chortling panpipes, placed in one of the boxes, Rimsky proves worthy of being another MTT-championed maverick. At one point, Cleopatra makes an entrance (don’t ask), a clarinet has a virtuosic solo worthy of Boulez. The catalog of special effects in the strings presage not only Debussy but even Ligeti.

Orchestrally, Tilson Thomas led a fabulous performance, reveling in the color, audacity and sheer exhilaration of the score. The huge massed effects--there are times when it almost sounds like a percussion concerto--provided plenty of raw excitement, but the San Francisco Symphony also displayed an extraordinary level of delicacy and sensuous detailing. Within all this, Tilson Thomas further encourages an impressive degree of individual expression from his players.

Unfortunately, the attempts at creating the illusion of a stage picture in Davies Hall proved mostly counterproductive to the orchestra’s musical adventurousness. The action took place on a high platform behind the orchestra and directly under the chorus, which sits above the stage. Sandra J. Woodall designed a colorful backdrop of sun and clouds that picked up the light. The singers, directed by Peter McClintock, wore something between costume and concert dress and performed from memory but were rarely successful at assuming character.

There was some strong singing, especially from Tigran Martirossian, the prince who encourages his daughter, Voislava, to offer Mlada a poison ring. But Ljuba Kazarnovskaya was not a feisty Voislava, nor was Susanna Poretsky convincingly demonic as the evil goddess Morena, who leads her on. Gegam Grigorian, the stalwart leading tenor of the Kirov, was the stocky, not always secure but still heroic Yaromir. A nice touch was the use of countertenor Brian Asawa to sing the songs of a Czech bard, a male role written for mezzo-soprano.

Mlada was danced by former San Francisco Ballet star Evelyn Cisneros, with traditional choreography by Val Caniparoli. But like the singers, she seemed far away, dancing on the high, distant platform and oddly conventional for such unconventional music. Her presence only emphasized the lack of any other dancers; the big dance numbers were played to an empty stage, creating a static sensation despite the often amazing music.

Even so, nothing could take away from the sense of astonishment this work creates, or from the absolutely dazzling performance this orchestra and the also impressive San Francisco Chorus were achieved. From the moment MTT arrived at the San Francisco Symphony, he began making waves. The surf’s still up.

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The San Francisco Symphony repeats “Mlada” tonight at 8 and tomorrow at 7 p.m., $34-$90, Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. (415) 864-6000 or www.sfsymphony.org.