(Credit: Inés Bacher)

A mysterious traveler climbed onto the stage, draped in a long garment. A burnished gold and bronze curtain rose slowly on her approach as she sought to enter it. Slowly, a second curtain began to rise. All was suspended, still. It seemed as if time began to peel away. We were elsewhere as well as right there. “Khovanshchina” began, Modest Mussorgsky’s historical war drama, on the final night of the Salzburg Easter Festival.

Conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a new co-production with the Metropolitan Opera New York, directed and choreographed by Simon McBurney. The Text used combined that of Mussorgsky and that of Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov. The new version of the score was reversed and orchestrated by Dmitri Shostakovich, arranged and edited by Gerard McBurney, with the Igor Stravinsky choral finale. This combination of extraordinary artistic skills and vision brought a sumptuous and breathtaking performance of the unfinished opera to moving and thought-provoking heights. The audience remained spellbound.

The work created a palimpsest offering us a glimpse of Russian history from the 17th century. Esa-Pekka Salonen remarked in an earlier interview, that with some name changes, it could be the 21st century as well. In other words, one particular time and specific historical event was focused on while showing the root and branches of violence from which it continued to unfold. The particular audience played witness to the multiple scenes of chaos and mayhem reappearing in more than even these two centuries. The creative artists involved were: Rebecca Ringst set designer, Christina Cunningham costumes, Tom Visser lights, Will Duke video design, Tuomas Norvio sound design, with co-direction and movement Leah Hausman, and Dramaturgy and Advisor Gerard McBurney, and Hannah Whitley. They produced a marvel.

Once the multi-layered time and place was set, we began to see what was nearly predictable: how human greed, lust, envy, and competition wreck further havoc in the country and send it rippling down to other generations. The Khovanshchina’s help to implement this, one after another. Ivan performed by Vitalij Kowaljow, in a strong bass voice, which resounded out of his fur coat while he gestured down stage set the tone. Then astride in his little electric car riding through the gathering crowds conveying the power he assumed he could wield until the end of time. Most dramatically, however, he dramatized this in is death scene, in a bathtub “a la Marat”, which was heightened by the excellent use of video projection going on simultaneously. The marvel of this scene demonstrated just how meticulous the production treated the subject: the black and white film stretched the truth at the same time we “lived” it. This device worked seamlessly, unlike many productions today which utilize such techniques but call attention to themselves and thus interrupt the effect and its provocative intention. Not here. Here came close to being there and getting the larger perspective simultaneously.

Thomas Atkins performed Andry, Matthew White performed Vasilt Golitsy, Daniel Okulitch performed Shaklovity, Ain Anger performed Dosifei, each of them articulating their roles so well-synthesized, magnetizing the disparate social strata enmeshed in the destruction. They succeeded in showing how their own self-involvement broke their own hold on the government. Emma, performed by Natalia Tanasii, Rupert Grössinger as Vasonovfyev, Allison Cook as Susanna, Theo Lebow as Kuska, and Daniel Fussek as Streschnew, each brought a strong dynamic voice and color to the unfolding pageant. With unique precision as well as passion, the chicanery and desperation struck its blows on stage. Except for the finale, of which there were more and perhaps unnecessary variations to bring the whole to completion, there was little to no waste.

Nadezhda Karyazina as Marfa stood out with her superb performance. Not only the lynchpin of the drama, the vision and the “potential” solution, but the marvel of the evening, her role as woman whose power is love and non-rational vision, who is capable of instigating mystery and sorcery as well as wisdom of different kinds and human loyalty, compassion and passion. She remained the heart of the production. Her vocal range was remarkable, singing lows, deep and resonant except on one or two occasions, and an upper register, full of dusky coloration as well. Not without variety and point, however. Only the perhaps excessively long finale – did we need the whole burial of “her” Khovanshchina, and the shifting directions and the priest/pastor recognition et al to bring the whole to a conclusion? At the moment, one climax seemed enough, though the production offered at least three extras.

Kudos to the choruses, including the Slovak Philharmonic Choir, Bachchor Salzburg and the Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor, Jan Rozehnal, Michael Schneider, and Wolfgang Götz and Regina Sgier – male, female, mixed, clear, clarion, powerful. Here were the Russian people – as if in one voice yet multiple. From different parts of the stage and off, rich commentary, a Greek chorus of its own, the people, not only the multi-voiced, dressed, dynamic moving vehicle of a whole point of view, but a single unit moving like a singular body aching, protesting, revolving, pleading, begging, with aplomb and bravery and fear and pity. Here was Wagner’s own “gesamstkunstwerk” in action – the sound, the drama, the message, the beauty, through Mussorgsky’s own hand and story.

Esa-Pekka Salonen was certainly the well-spring for the guidance for this to happen. No doubt. It was a seamless garment – the one voice of many. He was a powerhouse, carefully articulating moment after moment. The music was clear, precise, aesthetically replete.

The color palette of the Russian composer’s vision was executed with meticulous decisiveness. The contrasts and synthesis brought us into the drama with fullness. The shifting rhythms, from percussion to bells, from deep rumblings to evanescent tinkling – we surely traveled in a unique universe.

Salonen never overpowered the singers and yet he provided no mere accompaniment. He led, he combined, he receded. In fact, through him, the music brought fate into the auditorium. For that’s what was here. Despite the questions it all raised: Is that where we are? Who we are? Are we predetermined? Destined? Undesired? Remnants of a lost idea, a tribe of humans who despair of the god they created and to whom they call hoping and hoping if they are good enough, guilt-free, they will be granted salvation? Not so. “The Lord is my shepherd,” and this is what we are? Arms up? Sacrificed? Perhaps, but perhaps not. If only… what? Revolution? See? Drive on past our limitations? Our confusions? We left Salzburg Festival‘s production of “Khovanshchina” clear about one thing: Art when combined with intelligence, skill and beauty shows us the way.