Lunacy at the Old Theater

Curtain of the Mariinsky Theater. Photo from Wikipedia.

A more accurate title would be “Lunacy at the Bolshoi Theater”, but this would hint too strongly at the recent events at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater, which certainly qualify as lunacy, but are not what this post is about.

This spring, my home town, St. Petersburg, has finally inaugurated a new building of the opera and ballet theater, Mariinsky II. The new theater opened with a lavish gala on May 2, followed by Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta, whose enduring popularity is a mystery to me, and Balanchine’s ballet Jewels performed on May 3. Mostly enthusiastic reviews of the new building have prompted me to refresh my memory of the history of Mariinsky Theater. Among other things, I was curious about the very first performance given on stage of the old opera house.

Bolshoi Theater in place
of the Conservatory,
St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral in center
ca. 1810, Image from Wikipedia

St. Petersburg's main musical theater first appeared across the street from the iconic green-and-white building on Teatralnaya (Theater) Square. Founded on orders of Catherine II, the Bolshoi Kamennyi Theater (Grand Stone Theater) was opened on October 5, 1783, and surprised its first visitors with magnificent decor and modern stage equipment. The theater was designed by architect Antonio Rinaldi, who also constructed the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg, the Gatchina Palace, and a number of park monuments in Tsarskoe Selo.

Mariinsky Theater, old building,
Photo from al-spbphoto.narod.ru 

Several reconstructions, two devastating fires and one dead architect (Thomas de Thomon, who was in charge of the reconstruction of the Bolshoi) later, a new theater, designed by Alberto Cavos and named Mariinsky after the wife of Alexander II, empress Maria, was opened in 1860 on the opposite side of the Theater Square. For nearly quarter of a century, both theaters, Bolshoi and Mariinsky, operated in parallel. In 1884, all ballet productions were transferred to the Mariinsky Theater, the building of the Bolshoi was torn down, and a new St. Petersburg Conservatory was built in its place. Russian speakers might also enjoy this film about the history of Mariinsky/Kirov ballet that features some delightful archival material. 

The performance chosen for the inauguration of the Bolshoi Theater was Giovanni Paisiello’s opera buffa Il mondo della luna. Paisiello (1740-1816) was invited to St. Petersburg to serve as the court composer and spent in Russia eight years (1776-1784), during which he composed thirteen operas (out of nearly one hundred he penned over his lifetime), a large number of instrumental pieces, and an oratorio Passions of the Christ. Among Paisiello's "Russian" operas was Il barbiere di Siviglia, which was created shortly before Il mondo della luna in 1782 and became an instant hit in St. Petersburg and later in Europe. But, of course, it was subsequently completely eclipsed by Rossini's creation, which appeared in winter of 1816, few months before Paisiello's death. Libretto borrowing was quite common in those days, so Puccini and Leoncavallo at the end of the 19 century were simply following in the masters' footsteps, when they were feuding over their two versions of La bohème.

With Il mondo della luna, it was Paisiello's turn to pilfer a libretto: the comedy written by Carlo Goldoni was so popular that nine different composers used it for their operas. The best known of these operas was composed by Haydn in 1777 for the wedding celebrations of Count Esterhazy's youngest son. Like other classical operas, Il mondo della luna had fallen into obscurity, but was then re-discovered and revived, and Haydn's version fared much better than Paisiello's.

Il mondo della luna is a racy, campy farce, so it is not obvious to me why Haydn considered it to be suitable for a wedding celebration and why Paisiello chose it for the opening of an imperial theater. In the center of this strange tale is a rich old kook Buonafede (bona fide) who locks horns with his two daughters, Flaminia and Clarice, and servant Lisetta: all three women want husbands, but not the ones that Buonafede has chosen for them. A charlatan astrologer, Ecclitico, wants to marry Clarice, a nobleman Ernesto pursues Flaminia, and his servant Cecco pines for Lisetta, but the men are penniless. Ecclitico devises a plan to get hold of Buonafede's riches by exploiting the man's hobby - astronomy - and his fascination with the Moon. Ecclitico entices Buonafede with canocchialone, a giant telescope that can offer a glimpse of the lunar world. Buonafede is transfixed by the sight, while Eccitico's servants place salacious pictures in front of the telescope. Ecclitico then offers the old man an elixir that would ostensibly transport him to the Moon. Buonafede drinks the elixir, falls asleep, and when he awakens, Ecclitico and company pretend to be at the court of the Emperor of the Moon and perform for the old man an elaborate and completely ridiculous ceremony. Buonafede is completely taken by this spectacle and realizes that he was duped only after giving his blessing to all three couples. 

I found only an audio recording of Paisiello's opera (Fabio Neri, conductor; 1996). It is truly charming, but Haydn's opera is more inventive and engaging. Long stretches of recitativo secco, which are usually edited in more recent productions, do not serve Paisiello's creation well.

A notable recording of Haydn's opera was released in 1978 with Antal Dorati conducting Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne; it sounds as though it is heavily influenced by the manner in which Rossini and Mozart operas are usually performed. In 2010 Haydn’s opera was performed by Gotham Theater at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. A more appropriate place for this opera could not be found. And – I somehow missed it. An informative review of this production written by Matthew Gurewitsch for the NY Times has whetted my interest in this opera.

Apart from a thirty-second fragment, I could not find any videos of the Gotham's production, but I found an earlier (2009) production by Concentus Musicus Wien led by Nicolas Harnoncourt (who, by the way, is a cellist and for a while conducted the Concentus while playing cello) at Theater an der Wien (YouTube video, 2:44:37). Interesting articles about this production can be found here, on a consistently excellent blog by a Toronto opera buff, Opera Ramblings, and here. The joys of the Vienna performance are threefold; an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek production, the luminous voices of the two sisters, and Dietrich Henschel as Buonafede. The sorrows are Harnoncourt's free hand with his horns (in the orchestra, that is) and a vocally uneven cast. 

Mr. Henschel, one of the most intelligent and characterful European singers and musical personalities, inhabits the role of the pompous old fool with complete commitment and does some amazing physical acting, all the while dressed in the most ridiculous getup imaginable - that of Barbara Eden in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie [but tell me how, just how a man in his forties with a sedentary job can maintain such splendid figure and what looks like less than ten percent body fat?].

I also liked that in this production Haydn does not sound like stock Mozart or Rossini and that this opera is treated as high camp that it is. As noted in the NYT review, in one scene (at 1:45:00 in the Vienna video), Harnoncourt insists on following Haydn's score directions for the violins to play "triple piano with wooden mutes", which creates an eerie, high-pitched hum that resembles a glass harmonica or perhaps something even more exotic, perhaps Termenvox.