Ambitious, opulent tale of a society ravaged by terror

War and Peace, Millennium Centre, Cardiff

NOW, be honest. Have you read Tolstoy’s War and Peace? I haven’t. It’s one of those epic novels one feels one should read, but the challenge can prove too daunting.

An easier alternative is to watch King Vidor’s 1956 film of the novel. Another option is to spend three hours or so sitting through this Welsh National Opera production of Prokofiev’s adaptation of the book.

This is an ambitious attempt to capture the dramatic intensity of Tolstoy’s tale of the tribulations of Russian society as Napoleon edges closer to the country’s border. It is only partially successful, although it does entice me to have a crack at the novel. The opera was composed in the 1940s amid the slaughter resulting from the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia. Those horrific events, and the parallels with Napoleon’s invasion some 100 years before, obviously influenced the composition. The impact both invasions had on Russia’s sense of national identity is sensitively explored in this opulent production, directed by WNO artistic director David Pountney.

The opera is divided into two sections. The first half, called Peace, introduces us to the main characters. Tolstoy developed those characters in his novel of more than 1,000 pages. Although this production spans more than three hours, it does not portray those characters in the depth required. The second section, called War, is wider in scope and rather more effective in engaging attention and emotions.

Dramatic film footage of Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1966 film War and Peace is used to good effect, but on the whole one does not feel the visceral sense of pity and terror which Mr Pountney contends are the proper subjects of tragedy.

The ensemble singing is superb, the WNO orchestra plays with its usual panache, and Lauren Michelle impresses as the headstrong Natasha. The scene towards the end, where she nurses the dying Andrei, played by Jonathan McGovern, stirs the emotions and hints at the cathartic release that one needs to feel at the end of the drama.

■ Peter Collins