Don’t bet on this silly farrago . . .
REVISED Brexit must include an extra clause: ‘No more arrogant German-trained producers invading our opera houses and messing up our favourite operas, please.’
Only then will it be safe to go back to Covent Garden.
This version of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece is so cockamamie as to confuse even those of us who have known The Queen Of Spades for years.
It starts pornographically and goes downhill, with even hints of lesbianism.
The delightful Mozartian divertissement in Act 2 is turned into a vulgar travesty. Norwegian producer Stefan Herheim has baritone Vladimir Stoyanov double as Prince Yeletsky and an annoying Tchaikovsky lookalike who interferes at every point.
The male chorus represent more Tchaikovskys and Herheim seems fixated on the contaminated glass of water that killed the composer.
The drama takes place entirely in one boring set, at odds with Piotr and Modest Tchaikovsky’s intentions. If Herheim has so little faith in the material he is working with, why did he take the job?
Ironically Stoyanov, in his guise as Yeletsky, provides the best singing of the evening in his arioso.
On Wednesday, tenor Antonenko was ill, but Sergey Polyakov fitted in seamlessly as obsessive gambler Herman. Eva-Maria Westbroek is a fine Liza and Felicity Palmer is mesmeric as the countess whom Herman virtually kills to get the secret of her winning cards.
Antonio Pappano conducts eloquently but it is hard to concentrate on the music when the staging is so perverse and perverted.
The whole farrago is an insult to Tchaikovsky, a greater man of the theatre than Herheim will ever be.