Session 1: Excerpts

LISTEN

Broadcast (10/12/1945)
4 excerpts: total run time ~ 9 minutes
Georges Sebastian conducts the Company premiere of Mussorgsky’s work, sung in Italian, with the incomparable bass Ezio Pinza in the title role and tenor John Garris as the Simpleton.

• Featured Cast and Libretto Excerpts

  
  San Francisco Opera premiere

  BORIS GODUNOV
  (In Italian)
  
  Music and libretto by Modest Mussorgsky

  War Memorial Opera House
  October 12, 1945 (Broadcast)

  CAST
  Marina                        Vivian Della Chiesa
  Dmitri                         Frederick Jagel
  The Simpleton        John Garris
  Boris Godunov        Ezio Pinza
  Fyodor                         Herta Glaz

  Conductor                Georges Sebastian
  Director                      Armando Agnini
  
  

  Clip 1: Act III. “Dmitri,” pretender to the Russian throne, pursues the wealthy Marina in her garden in Poland. [Mussorgsky added the “Polish Act” for his 1872 revised version of the opera]

  Clip 2: Act IV, Scene 1. As Dmitri arrives in Moscow threatening to destabilize the Tsar’s rule, the Simpleton sings a mournful song. [This scene often ends the opera, but San Francisco Opera chose to end with the death of Boris.]

  Clip 3: Act IV, Scene 2. Boris Godunov’s health is failing. He instructs his son, Fyodor, on how to be Tsar.

  Clip 4: As a bell rings outside of the Kremlin, Boris senses that it signals his death. With his last breaths he prays to God and collapses on the ground dead.

  To access the featured libretto excerpts, click here.

• Listener Response #1

  
  San Francisco Opera had just entered its third decade in 1945, when the season’s highlights included the company’s first staging of Boris Godunov. The decision to present the work in Italian no doubt had everything to do with the presence of Ezio Pinza, who was willing to sing the title role only in his native tongue. He’d already done so with great success at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as in Italy and South America.

  Pinza had been San Francisco Opera’s leading bass since 1927, and would maintain that stature on the roster with appearances in 21 out of the next 22 seasons. Onstage his repertoire was astonishing and surely unique among star basses in the company’s history, covering seemingly every great role in his vocal category—even three roles of Wagner (the Landgrave in Tannhäuser, King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, and Pogner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), which one presumes he sang in Italian while the other principals sang in German. Such was his eminence as an artist that if he’d wanted to sing Boris in Urdu, the company would probably have agreed!

  “Streaming the First Century” has chosen Boris’s farewell to his son and the death scene as a vivid reminder of the tremendous effect Pinza made in this role. Of course, he sings “Addio, mio figlio, io muoio” (“Farewell, my son, I am dying”) rather than “Pro roščaj, moj syn, umiraju,” but his expressiveness proves ideally tender and deeply moving nonetheless. Although the bass was nearing the end of his operatic career, the treasurable individuality of his voice and its uniquely sumptuous tone remain. As usual, Pinza is effortlessly able to reduce his sound to a velvety pianissimo (listen to Boris’s plea to his son Fyodor to take care of their beloved Xenia, the boy’s sister). Where so many other singers have turned crazed and hysterical in the character’s final moments, with his cry that he is still Tsar, Pinza’s Boris retains dignity, even majesty.

  Two other episodes precede Pinza in these excerpts, beginning with the finale of the so-called “Polish Act” (almost universally deleted from productions of this opera today). We hear two notable American artists, Vivian della Chiesa as Princess Marina and Frederick Jagel as the “False Dmitri,” pretender to the Russian throne (the role of Marina’s confessor, the fanatical Jesuit Rangoni, is cut). Where Jagel possesses the necessary spinto tenor, della Chiesa is a full lyric soprano in a role generally cast with a dramatic mezzo. She and Jagel sound notably strong-voiced and confident, if not especially distinctive.

  Following that excerpt, we hear a brief portion of the Simpleton’s Lament sung by John Garris, the sadly short-lived German-born tenor who sang a wide range of lyric and character parts at San Francisco Opera from 1944 to 1949. He brings an entirely convincing plaintiveness to this music, which works beautifully in the Italian translation.

   On the podium is a Frenchman, Georges Sebastian, one of the most versatile conductors of the time, who is in full command, achieving both the grandeur and the intimacy that Mussorgsky requires.

  
  Roger Pines, who recently concluded a 23-year tenure as dramaturg of Lyric Opera of Chicago, is a contributing writer to Opera News, Opera (U.K.), and programs of opera companies and recordings internationally. He has been on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music for the past three years.

• Listener Response #2

  
  I’m not old enough to have seen the original Broadway version of Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific (though I loved the movie), but I somehow knew that the role of French planter Emile le Becque and the song “Some Enchanted Evening” had been introduced by Ezio Pinza—and, vaguely, that Pinza had, once upon a time, been an opera singer. I since learned that before crossing over to musicals, film, and television in the 1950s, the Italian-born Pinza was one of opera’s biggest prewar stars, a fixture for over two decades at S.F. Opera in such renowned bass-baritone roles as Aida’s Ramfis, Carmen’s Escamillo, Faust’s Mephistophélès, and Mozart’s Figaro and Don Basilio. Pinza sang the title role in this 1945 production of Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and judging from his performance of the dying Tsar’s Act IV aria “Proschay, moy sin” (Farewell, my son), Pinza draws on the lyric singing style and charismatic acting that was his trademark. It’s a different sound from the more muscular and declamatory approach to the role that we are now accustomed to, though there is also a cry in Pinza’s voice that communicates Boris’s anguish. In 1939, Pinza became the Met’s first successor to the definitive Boris, Feodor Chaliapin, though, as he did in San Francisco six years later, he sang the role in Italian, which, until the 1970s, was common practice when non-Russian-speaking singers were cast in the opera.

  Mark Burford is a San Francisco Opera contributor and R.P. Wollenberg Professor of Music at Reed College. His research and teaching focuses on late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Austro-German concert music and twentieth-century popular music in the United States, with particular focus on African American music after World War II. 

• Listener Response #3

  
  It is always a joy to hear Ezio Pinza in actual performance—first of all for the beauty of the voice itself. But also because he seems incapable of singing a routine phrase or a careless note. Everything is saturated in the emotions of the character at that specific moment, which makes everything intensely alive.

  But what really grabbed me about this performance was the Simpleton, sung so hauntingly and tenderly by tenor John Garris, a superb singer whose life was cut short when he was murdered in the early morning hours of April 21, 1949, while on tour with the Metropolitan Opera in Atlanta. He and his partner, Lutz Peter, had fled from their native Frankfurt-on-Main in 1934, first to Athens and then, when the Nazis invaded Greece, to the US.

  Garris was born Hans J. K. Gareis to a musical family. When the New York Times announced his engagement by the Metropolitan Opera in November 1941, he was described as a “buffo-tenor” and noted, “He made his way to the United States on a Greek freighter that took almost five months to get here.” Later Lutz Peter remembered the two men had 75 cents between them when they finally reached America. Garris had been engaged to Lutz’s sister, Lotte, who refused to leave Germany with them and who perished in a concentration camp.

  He made his debut at the Met in February 1942 as the First Knight in Parsifal, then quickly added Valzacchi in Rosenkavalier, Monostatos in Magic Flute, and the Simpleton in Boris—roles that call for significant acting chops as well as good singing. He quickly gained a reputation for having an unusually ingratiating stage presence in addition to a pleasing, often sweet, lyric tenor voice. By the fall of 1943 he was singing with San Francisco Opera, debuting as the First Philistine in Samson et Dalila and also appearing that season as Ruiz in Trovatore, Tim (a miner) in Fanciulla del West, Arturo in Lucia, and—his first principal role with the Company—Ernesto in Don Pasquale. In his history of the company, Arthur Bloomfield reports how Garris made the most of his major assignment, and was so good in the comparatively tiny role in Lucia that one local critic flatly declared he was the best Arturo in ten years. The early combination of supporting roles with an occasional major plum assignment gradually changed as he added significant roles like Mime in Siegfried and David in Meistersinger. In 1946, he sang Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Met and, in the Times, Olin Downs wrote, “His phrasing and breath control were admirable throughout. His voice is not of the type traditionally associated with this role, nor was his over-all style. This was refreshing. It made the part more virile and more masculine and the audience welcomed this accomplishment with special applause.”

  He was chosen by Toscanini to sing the tenor part in Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette in 1947 (which has been released on CD), and his excursions into Lieder recitals were well received. In January 1949, he was Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville at the Met and five days later sang Mime in Siegfried—two roles that are polar opposites in almost every way. Musical America said of the later performance, “John Garris’ Mime was once more what it so often has been—as fine an embodiment of the dwarf as the Metropolitan has ever harbored.” Shortly after that, Irving Kolodin reviewed his appearance in Meistersinger in the New York Sun, calling it “brilliant” and adding, “Possessed of the right voice, figure, and imagination for the music, Garris could be one of the great Davids. He is already an exceptionally good one.” Alas a few months later he was dead.

  On April 19, he sang Laërte in Thomas’ Mignon at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre and the next evening attended the performance of L’Elisir d’Amore. Afterwards, he boarded the train that was to take the company to Memphis, the next stop on the Met’s tour. But when people discovered that the departure time had been delayed to 4:30 AM rather than the scheduled 12:30 AM, many people, including Garris, decided to go see something of Atlanta’s nightlife.

  In the early morning hours, someone shot him near the heart. His body was placed in an alley, on his back, feet crossed at the ankles, and his hands thrown back over his head. The story hit the front page of the New York Times. With his money, jewelry, and wallet still on his body. robbery was ruled out as motive. When the Atlanta police discovered Garris was gay, they decided he had probably been involved in some nefarious activities that led to his death and apparently stopped serious investigating. The murder remains unsolved to this day.

  John Garris was only 36 years old.

  
  Paul Thomason has combined a lifelong passion for music, his decades of experience in publishing, and his delight in storytelling to create a unique voice in writing and lecturing about opera. In addition to writing regularly for the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Aspen Music Festival and other companies in the US and Europe, he is also a regular guest on the award-winning podcast Aria Code and the London Wagner Society’s Zoom series.

• Synopsis

   

  During the reign of Feodor, weakling son of Ivan the Terrible, a position of great power and responsibility was vested in Boris Godunov, a friend of Czar Ivan. Although Boris was the all powerful regent he was consumed with ambition and craftily caused the death of Dmitri, second son of Ivan, to whom the throne would have passed on the death of Ivan. When Feodor dies, Boris goes into seclusion in a monastery on the outskirts of Moscow. He pretends not to desire the throne but secretly orders the police to force the populace of Moscow to beg him to assume their leadership.

  ACT I

  SCENE 1—Outside the monastery walls the people, in fear of the lash of the police, urge Boris to declare himself Czar. When he pretends to be inflexible, a group of pilgrims enter and join in the supplication.

  SCENE 2—Pimenn tells Gregory the story of Dmitri's assassination which so fires the imagination of the young monk that he determines to impersonate the slain royal youth and claim the throne.

  SCENE 3—Boris accepts the crown and is acclaimed by the populace.

  ACT II

  SCENE 1—The false Dmitri, who has escaped the monastery, accompanied by Varlaam and Missail, two roistering accomplices, enters and after a brief encounter with some soldiers narrowly escapes arrest and flees across the border.

  SCENE 2—Boris tries to comfort Xenia who has recently lost her betrothed, and sends her and Teodoro out to seek the companionship of their friends. Left alone he bemoans his fate in "The Monologue of Boris." Prince Shouisky arrives bearing news of the uprising in Poland on behalf of the false Dmitri. Boris, overcome is once more the prey to remorse.

  ACT III

  Gregory awaits Marina with whom he is in love. Marina with her banquet guests come into the garden. As they dance the Polonaise the guests toast Marina and swear to banish Boris and his Muscovite followers. In a love scene that follows, Marina induces Gregory to lead the attack against Moscow.

  ACT IV

  SCENE 1—The people are in open revolt. Cries of "Death to Boris" can be heard. Dmitri, the usurper, passes through with some troops on his way to Moscow and draws the crowd with him acclaiming him their lawful Czar. As the stage is cleared, the village idiot is left sitting alone in the falling snow singing a heart-rending ditty on the hopeless condition of Russia.

  SCENE 2—The Duma of Boyars are assembled to decide the punishment of the usurper. Before they consider the matter, Shouisky asks Boris, haggard from the terrible visions that are haunting him, to grant an audience with Pimenn, who is waiting outside. Pimenn enters and relates a miracle which had happened at the tomb of Dmitri. He tells of how a blind shepherd, commanded in a dream to appear at Dmitri's tomb, has his vision restored when he kneels in prayer at the grave. A cry of anguish interrupts the old monk. It is Boris, who falls in a faint. Regaining consciousness Boris, feeling himself dying, asks that his son be brought to him. Pointing to Teodoro as his successor he commands him to rule wisely and always protect his sister Xenia. Gasping for breath he dies in agony.

• Cast Page/Program

  
  To access the cast page and full program, click here.

LISTEN

House recording (November)
3 excerpts: total run time ~ 8 minutes

The U.S. premiere of Janáček’s opera about the mysterious “Emilia Marty,” performed here by soprano Marie Collier, was preserved thanks to a house recording made for conductor Jascha Horenstein.

• Featured Cast and Libretto Excerpts

  
  United States premiere
  
  THE MAKROPULOS CASE
  (in English)
  

  Music and libretto by Leoš Janáček
  Based on the novel by Karel Capek

  War Memorial Opera House
  November 1966 (audience recording)

  CAST
  Emilia Marty                         Marie Collier
  Jaroslav Prus                      Chester Ludgin
  Albert Gregor                     Gregory Dempsey
  Dr. Kolenaty                         Leon Lishner
  Vitek                                       Robert Glover

  Conductor                          Jascha Horenstein
  Production                          Paul Hager

  Clip 1: Prus baits the mysterious Emilia Marty into revealing details of her identity and how she knows things she should not possibly know.  

  Clip 2: Seeking to retrieve the secret to her immortality from Prus, Emilia agrees to sleep with him to obtain the letter. 

  Clip 3: Realizing the meaninglessness of her timeless existence, Emilia decides to give the letter with the secret to Christa who promptly destroys it.
  
  To access the featured libretto excerpts, click here.
  

• Listener Response #1

  
  Leoš Janáček’s The Makropulos Case, first seen in 1926, waited a full forty years for its first US performances, given by San Francisco Opera. When it premiered here in 1966, it was sung not in the composer’s native Czech, whose rhythms and sounds he wedded so closely to his music, but in English—a concession to the audience, perhaps, made in the hope that the language would help navigate a complicated plot and ease the way through music which at that time still would have sounded new, perhaps uncomfortably new, and not just to the audience. Conductor Jascha Horenstein’s affinity for 20^th-century music made him an obvious choice to lead these performances, and if he nonetheless approaches the score with a caution absent in the company’s more recent stagings of 2010 and 2016, that stylistic gap illustrates how accustomed the world (not just a conductor, not just an orchestra) has grown to rude accents and tough turns of phrase, and with what facility those accents and those turns can now be delivered, in art as in life.

  Set in 1920s Prague, the opera thrusts us immediately into the midst of a lawsuit, Gregor v. Prus. This is a dispute between the descendants of Baron Josef Prus and his illegitimate son by the opera singer Ellian MacGregor. Jaroslav Prus is consulting with Dr. Kolenatý, who is litigating the case. The diva Emilia Marty enters and exhibits an odd acquaintance with the suit, to the point of knowing where the Baron’s will is sequestered. Marty is in fact Ellian MacGregor, who is in fact Elina Makropulos, who more than 300 years earlier drank the elixir of youth and possesses the secret of eternal life and beauty. But the elixir wears thin with the centuries, and Marty is desperate for the formula, which she lent to her long-ago lover but which he never used, and which is stashed with his will. Now, in the litigants Gregor and Prus, both captivated by her, and in the young lovers Kristina and Janek, Marty encounters emotions the years have stolen from her, and which she can no longer feel. Her desire to continue exhausted, she relinquishes her hold on the formula. At last she reclaims her humanity by succumbing to it and its inevitable consequence.

  Australian soprano Marie Collier brings a larger-than-life presence to her role as Janáček’s Elina Makropulos/Emilia Marty, at age 337 opera’s oldest woman, whose secret of eternal youth has left her bored and miserable. As the scheming and lecherous Jaroslav Prus, American baritone Chester Ludgin displays the bearing that made him such a fine singing actor and a favorite of San Francisco Opera, where he appeared in productions that spanned more than two decades after his 1962 company debut. Though the audio quality fails to do justice to the voices, it does its job in documenting a historic moment in American opera. Besides, the power of the principals’ portrayals is evident, as is the audience’s enthusiasm. Listen to the applause that pre-empts the final bars.

  Larry Rothe writes about music for San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances. His books include For the Love of Music and Music for a City, Music for the World. Visit larryrothe.com.

• Synopsis

   
  Time and Place: Prague, early in the present century

  Three hundred years ago an alchemist by the name of Makropulos, employed by the Hapsburg Emperor, discovered the elixir of life and was forced by the Emperor to administer it to his own daughter, Elina.

  During the three hundred years that she has lived, she has had many identities, many names (always with the initials E.M.) and many affairs. One of her more passionate affairs was with Baron Josef Ferdinand Prus by whom she had a son. She also gave the Baron the formula for the elixir, but the potion killed him and on his deathbed he left his estate to their illegitimate son.

  Those in attendance around the deathbed, however, misunderstood the name he spoke, and unable to find such an heir, the estate went to a distant branch of the family. The illegitimate branch has contested this for nearly a century.

  ACT I

  In the office of his lawyer Dr. Kolenaty, Albert Gregor, the latest descendant of the illegitimate line of the Prus family, learns from the clerk Vitek that the case is to be settled that very day, once and for all. In debt and despondent at the thought of losing the estate, Gregor is desperate. Vitek's daughter, Christa, a young singer, enters exclaiming the glories of Emilia Marty, a beautiful opera singer. Dr. Kolenaty returns from court when suddenly Emilia Marty appears in the office, and inquires about the case of Gregor versus Prus. She displays, in the course of the conversation, an uncanny knowledge of the people and circumstances involved. She tells them of a written will left by the Baron which will provide them with the evidence they need to win the case. She also tells them exactly where to find the will. The lawyer, highly skeptical and suspicious, is forced by his client to look for the document. Gregor, dazzled by this famous beauty who has miraculously appeared to rescue him, falls madly in love and when left alone with her proclaims his devotion. She coldly repulses him. Interested in the case only because she needs the elixir's formula to give her another 300 years of life, Emilia Marty asks Gregor for it, but he denies all knowledge of its existence. The lawyer soon returns with the document in hand, overwhelmed by its existence and her knowledge of it. He still must have proof, however, that the illegitimate son was indeed fathered by the Baron. Emilia Marty promises to deliver the proof the very next day.

  ACT II

  At the theatre after the evening's performance, Christa, starry-eyed over Emilia Marty, tells her fiancée Janek, Baron Prus's son, that she thinks she will devote her life to the theatre, sacrificing all else. Having so decided she then succumbs to his attentions. Gregor and Prus come looking for Emilia Marty. They are interrupted by an elderly gentleman by the name of Hauk, one of Emilia Marty's lovers many years ago. Caught by the memory of their previous blissful relationship, they are transported into the past. Hauk then happily departs with his dreams of yesteryear. Emilia Marty sends Gregor away and tries to find out if Prus has the elixir's formula. Gregor returns proclaiming his love for her though in his tempestuousness he threatens to kill her for her indifference. Janek returns and Marty urges him to steal the document she seeks from his father. Unseen, Prus has come back and overhears the conversation. He admits possession of the document and agrees to give it to her but only on the condition that she spend the night with him.

  ACT III

  Prus, though disappointed because he has found Emilia Marty cold and unfeeling in love, stands by his bargain and hands over the document. He suddenly learns that Janek has killed himself for love of the beautiful singer Emilia Marty. She, however, is quite unaffected by the news. The others are soon shown into her hotel room and charge her with fraud. They demand an explanation of her part in these affairs. Breaking down at last, Emilia Marty unfolds the fantastic tale of her 300 years of life and her many different lives and names. They realize at last that she is telling the truth and stand by in awe as her life drains away before their eyes. She, realizing at last the meaning of a life bounded by death, welcomes her end and offers the formula to Christa, promising her fame and fortune. Christa refuses and burns the document as Marty dies.

• Cast Page/Program

  
  To access the cast page and full program, click here.

LISTEN

Broadcast (10/24/1975)
5 excerpts: total run time ~ 9 minutes
The Company’s first performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades in the original Russian, was anchored by two recent émigrés from the Soviet regime: conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and soprano Galina Vishnevskaya.

• Featured Cast and Libretto Excerpts

  
  PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
  (In Russian)
  
  Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
  Libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a story by Alexander Pushkin

  War Memorial Opera House
  October 24, 1975 (Broadcast)

  CAST
  Gherman                       Peter Gougaloff**
  The Countess             Regina Resnik
  Lisa                                  Galina Vishnevskaya
  Prince Yeletsky           Ryan Edwards

  Conductor                   Mstislav Rostropovich**
  Director                         Michael Hadjimishev**

  **United States opera debut

  Clip 1: Act I. Gherman, who has been hiding outside Lisa’s bedroom on the balcony, enters the room and surprises her. He implores her not to fear him, but to pity his hopeless love for her. 

  Clip 2: Act I. Gherman hides as the Countess enters and asks why Lisa is not in bed yet. When she leaves, Gherman emerges, consumed by the secret that only the Countess holds: the three winning cards.

  Clip 3: Act II. Prince Yeletsky sings of his tender love for his betrothed, Lisa

  Clip 4: In trying to coax the secret of the cards from the Countess, Gherman has frightened her to death. Lisa enters and finds Gherman seemingly unconcerned with the woman’s death and only obsessed with having lost her secret. Lisa calls him a murderer and sinks to the ground, weeping.

  Clip 5: Act III. Lisa waits for Gherman by the canal. She muses on how the happiness she once felt in life has been replaced by sorrow and despair.
  
  To access the featured libretto excerpts, click here.
  

• Listener Response #1

  
  Prior to this performance, Tchaikovsky’s musically and dramatically thrilling Pikovaya Dama had been produced by San Francisco Opera only once before, in 1963. The 1975 production was worth waiting for—above all, because it brought to the company the world-famous couple whose very names represented the ultimate in Russian style.

  Mstislav Rostropovich had long been regarded as one of the greatest cellists of the twentieth century, but he was also rapidly establishing himself internationally as a conductor of both operatic and symphonic repertoire. His wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, was the most celebrated soprano in the history of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater. For both the singer and her husband, Pikovaya Dama would be their only appearance at San Francisco Opera. No doubt it became suddenly easier in 1975 for the company to obtain the services of both Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya, since they’d been exiled by the Soviet government the year before (after sheltering the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn) and had relocated to the United States.

  These excerpts begin with Tchaikovsky’s protagonist, sung by Peter Gougaloff. The Bulgarian tenor, whose only American performances were as San Francisco’s Gherman, had been singing leading roles throughout Europe for a decade. The character’s desperate confession of love for Lisa reveals a much brighter timbre than is generally heard in this role (Gougaloff would record it the following year for Deutsche Grammophon, with Vishnevskaya, Rostropovich, and San Francisco’s Countess, Regina Resnik). The tenor’s sound does remind us that Gherman is, after all, still a comparatively young man, and that he must be believable as someone who would appeal to the impressionable Lisa.           

  Nearly 50 in 1975, Vishnevskaya is still the complete Lisa. Her ample sound—instantly recognizable and quintessentially Russian in its smoldering darkness—registers powerfully in the crucial moments heard here: the character’s timidity before the Countess (Lisa’s grandmother); her shock when Gherman reveals that the Countess is dead; and her apprehension in anticipating what turns out to be her final meeting with Gherman (his mad obsession with learning the secret of winning at cards drives Lisa to suicide). Vishnevskaya can no longer communicate Lisa’s girlishness, but this hardly matters; hers is the interpretive authority that comes only from vast experience—above all, in the aria, which conveys a soulfulness that only a native Russian can provide. The warmth of tone is there, as is Vishnevskaya’s incomparably soulful phrasing. We get a brief taste of her skill in shaping quieter passages, which was always one of her greatest vocal strengths.

  Also present in these excerpts are two prominent Americans representing two generations of singing. In the Countess’s sudden appearance in Lisa’s room, we hear the legendary Resnik, who—after having moved from spinto soprano to dramatic mezzo in the course of her career—sings one of opera’s great character mezzo parts. Annoyed that Lisa hasn’t yet gone to sleep, this Countess is a woman of immense authority. Resnik embodies her vocally with rich tone of extraordinary depth, while coloring the text vividly.

  A portion of the opera’s most famous aria, that of Lisa’s lovestruck fiancé, Prince Yeletsky, is excerpted in a velvet-voiced, exceptionally long-breathed, unfailingly sympathetic performance by baritone Ryan Edwards, a singer best known for Verdi roles.

  The excitement generated in the pit by Rostropovich can hardly be overestimated. He responds to every nuance of the drama, inspiring the orchestra to white-hot energy and ideally full-bodied sound.

  
  Roger Pines, who recently concluded a 23-year tenure as dramaturg of Lyric Opera of Chicago, is a contributing writer to Opera News, Opera (U.K.), and programs of opera companies and recordings internationally. He has been on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music for the past three years.

• Broadcast Intermission Interview: Regina Resnik

  
  "I think to call Regina Resnik a fine singing actress is a masterpiece of understatement. We’ve seen her in San Francisco in a variety of situations, and what a pleasure to welcome her back as The Countess in our production of Pique Dame, which we’re hearing this evening. Well, I suppose it’s as obvious a question as any, Ms. Resnik, but this such a fascinating character, The Countess, and I’d like to ask how you have approached her. You’re so well-known for The Countess."
  
  Listen in as Scott Beach, longtime SF Opera broadcaster, delves into Regina Resnik's characterization of The Countess.
  (run time ~ 16 minutes)

  Listen
  Transcript

• Synopsis

  
  ACT I

  SCENE 1—St. Petersburg. Herman, a poor young officer whose fascination with the gambling table is remarked among his friends, admits to Tomsky that he is in love with a beautiful woman whom he has never met; that she is proud and highborn and he does not dare approach her. Prince Yeletsky appears and is congratulated on his coming marriage to Lisa, granddaughter of the Countess. The two women pass by, startled at seeing the mysterious stranger whom they have noticed lingering by their house. As Lisa and the Prince walk away arm-in-arm, Herman mutters that unseen disaster will soon blast the Prince's happiness like a bolt of lightning.

  Tomsky tells the story of the Countess who had been a famous beauty at the court of Louis XVI at Versailles and, infatuated with gambling, had lost her fortune. Taking advantage of her desperate circumstances, the Count St. Germain, thought by some to be the devil in disguise, had offered her in exchange for one rendezvous the secret of three winning cards. She later passed the secret to her husband and to a young lover. The ghost of St. Germain appeared before the Countess to warn her that she would die when approached a third time by "one burning with passion" who would force her to tell her secret.

  Tomsky and his friends leave, and Herman, alone in the gathering storm, gives way to anger and jealousy. Shouting to the elements, he repeats the devil's warning and swears he will have Lisa.

  SCENE 2—Lisa's parlor, in the evening. The melancholy Lisa does not respond to the efforts of her friend, Pauline, to cheer her. Mascha, Lisa's companion, bustles in to scold the girls and to order them to bed. Alone, Lisa confides to the night her love for the mysterious stranger. She is startled by Herman who comes through the window. He implores her to let him speak and passionately declares his love. Hearing a knock at the door, Lisa quickly hides Herman as the Countess enters. She reprimands Lisa for not being asleep and sweeps from the room. Herman renews his entreaties for Lisa's love and refuses to leave her. Overcome by her emotions, she falls into his embrace.

  ACT II

  SCENE 1—At an engagement reception for Lisa and Prince Yeletsky, Herman receives a note from Lisa asking him to meet her. From their hiding place, Herman's friends taunt him with his obsession for the secret of the three cards. Fearing that he has heard the ghostly voice of fate, Herman leaps to his feet in terror and distractedly rushes away. Lisa and the Prince pass by as he expresses his concern for her strange uneasiness and promises to protect her. As the guests again mingle, Lisa meets Herman and gives him the key to a secret door which leads through the Countess's apartment to her room. Exulting over the fact that he will at last learn the secret of the three cards, he hurries away.

  Scene 2—ln the Countess's room, Herman conceals himself when he hears the Countess entering with servants. He remains hidden until she has at last dismissed the servants and fallen asleep. As he stands before her, she wakes with a start and stares at him in terror. He implores her to reveal her secret. She remains silent and, goaded to fury, he commands her at pistol point. When she does not speak, he gradually realizes with horror that she is dead. Lisa suddenly comes through the secret door as Herman cries out that the secret of the three cards is lost forever. Lisa brands him as a scoundrel and orders him to leave.

  ACT III

  SCENE 1—Herman's quarters in the barracks. Herman reads a letter from Lisa in which she writes that she is certain he did not intentionally kill the Countess, begging forgiveness and asking that he meet her by the river at midnight. The hapless Herman bemoans his misery and tries to sleep. In a half-dream he sees again the funeral of the Countess. Suddenly the ghost of the Countess appears and tells Herman the secret. Three! Seven! Ace!

  SCENE 2—Lisa anxiously waits for Herman on the river embankment. At last he appears and tells her about the visit by the ghost of the Countess. He raves that nothing matters now he knows the secret of the three cards and destiny will have its way. Lisa tries to calm him but, completely out of his mind, Herman no longer recognizes her. Roughly pushing her aside, he runs away like a madman. Crazed by anguish, Lisa hurls herself into the river.

  SCENE 3—The gambling house. Herman is winning steadily with the aid of the secret. The other gamblers withdraw from the game, leaving only Prince Yeletsky who dares to challenge the winner. Herman stakes all he has won on one card and turns the Queen of Spades instead of an ace. The ghost of the Countess, young and beautiful as she once had been, appears to remind Herman of his date with Destiny. Mad with fear and rage, he takes his own life.

• Cast Page/Program

  
  To access the cast page and full program, click here.

LISTEN

Broadcast (November)
4 excerpts: total run time ~ 8 minutes
Tradition and the modernity clash in this musically refulgent work by Mussorgsky. Gerd Albrecht conducts the San Francisco Opera premiere featuring a sterling cast, including mezzo-soprano Helga Dernesch as Marfa.

• Featured Cast and Libretto Excerpts

  
  San Francisco Opera premiere

  KHOVANSHCHINA
  (In Russian)
  
  Music by Modest Mussorgssky
  Libretto by the composer and Vladimir Stasov
  Edited and orchestrated by Dmitri Shostakovich

  War Memorial Opera House
  November 1984 (Broadcast)

  CAST
  Dosifei                                             Gwynne Howell
  Marfa                                               Helga Dernesch*
  Prince Ivan Khovansky             Matti Salminen
  Prince Andrei Khovansky        Dennis Bailey

  Conductor                                    Gerd Albrecht
  Production                                   Sonja Frisell

  *San Francisco Opera debut

  Clip 1: Act I, Scene 6. Dosifei leads his followers, the old believers, in a prayer of renunciation and embrace of imminent martyrdom. 

  Clip 2: The old Believer Marfa pours water into a silver bowl and calls upon the spirits to reveal Prince Galitsyn’s future. She sees him surrounded by traitors, ready to betray him.

  Clip 3: The people call on Ivan Khovansky to lead them against the government’s troops, but he implores them to follow the will of the Tsar.

  Clip 4: The pyre is lit and the Old Believers commit themselves to the flames. Blissfully embracing death, Marfa recalls her love with Andrei, while the prince is terrified and calls out to his lover.
  
  To access the featured libretto excerpts, click here.

   

• Listener Response #1

   
  San Francisco Opera’s Fall 1984 Khovanshchina affected me more than almost any production I've ever seen there.  First off, the score—starting with the ravishing prelude "Dawn on the Moscow River," in such contrast to the skullduggery that follows—revealed staggering quality, as did the leading soloists. Frequent company visitor Welsh bass Gwynne Howell found the role of his career in the Old Believer patriarch Dosifei. (He returned as the strongest element in the Company’s 1990 revival.) His utterly solid bass projected moral strength and dignity. Helga Dernesch made a stunning Marfa, the devoted Old Believer painfully in love with the utterly unworthy cad Andrei Khovansky. (Slavic opera abounds in tenor scoundrels; surely he—an entitled yet cowardly rapist and murderer—rates among the vilest.) Matti Salminen's marbled, force-of-nature bass lent strongman Ivan Khovansky stature.

  Dernesch—then in the second phase of her career, as a dramatic mezzo—was always an utterly magnetic vocalist, drawing complete portraits of women in crisis or, like Goneril in Lear and Klytemnestra, two of her stellar San Francisco Opera turns, causing crises in others. Marfa connects all the warring factions of the plot; her intensity fuels the Divination Scene, in which she successfully predicts to Westernizing power broker Prince Golitsyn his ignominious downfall. In the finale she joins Howell in the Old Believers' haunting invocations of a fiery purification in death.

  Pursuing a Berkeley Comparative Literature degree with a Slavic focus I could explain most of the historical, religious and ethnic issues underlying the complicated libretto and some of the vexed musicological questions involved in any production of this work, left incomplete at its composer's premature death. Who are the Old Believers? Why are there Germans in 1690s Moscow? Who is the regent Sophia, Peter the Great's offstage half-sister—a major force in the opera's events—and why is she 1) regent 2) offstage? Conductor Gerd Albrecht, the powerful conductor, opted for Shostakovich's 1959 completion of the score, which—in line with positivistic Soviet emphasis on the virtues of strong central governance—even if it meant praising Czarist predecessors—wrests the final musical emphasis from the change-resistant Old Believers (with whom the nationalistic Mussorgsky's sympathies indubitably lay) at their moment of fiery self-sacrifice, introducing Tsar Peter's regiment's brass volley at the close—to indicate that the forces of Westernizing progress are coming to the rescue, like the Cavalry of Marxist Historical Inevitability.

  Mussorgsky and Stasov's dramaturgy focuses on a doomed, excluded group; in November 1984—in the grip of a savage pandemic, then without evident medical or political remedies—Khovanshchina evoked resonance in the city's beleaguered LGBT community. I never hear its magnificent music without thinking of the many standees, fellow student rush patrons and San Francisco Opera staff and artists who perished in that dark time.

  
  Critic and lecturer David Shengold resides in New York City. He regularly writes for Opera News, Opera, Opéra Magazine, Opernwelt and many other publications. He has taught courses on opera and literature at Williams, Mount Holyoke and Oberlin Colleges. He has done program essays for companies including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, ROH Covent Garden, and the Wexford and Glyndebourne festivals.

   

• Synopsis

  
  ACT I

  The drowsy strelets (musketeer) Kuzka hums an old marching song and falls asleep. He is awakened by companions who deride him for his diligence as a sentry. A scrivener arrives and is promptly engaged by the Boyar Shaklovity, who orders him to write an anonymous letter to the Tsar denouncing Prince Ivan Khovansky and his son Andrei for plotting against the throne. The terrified scrivener obeys; but as soon as Shaklovity has gone, he congratulates himself for imitating the handwriting of a dead colleague and thus avoiding possible reprisals.

  Ivan Khovansky leads his men, the Streltsy, into the Great Square, where he is hailed as the "White Swan" by the populace. He tells the crowd that he is determined to crush the enemies of the throne and to suppress treason. He orders his men to patrol the city and leaves. Emma, a young Lutheran girl from the German quarter, runs in pursued by Prince Andrei Khovansky who is determined to force his love on her despite her unwillingness. But Marfa, a young widow and a member of the Old Believers' sect, who is also Prince Andrei's discarded mistress, comes to Emma's aid. Furiously, the young prince turns on her with drawn dagger, but Marfa manages to parry his attempt on her life. The return of Prince Ivan and the Streltsy ends the quarrel. The elder Khovansky is also attracted to Emma and orders his men to take charge of her. Rather than leave Emma in his father's hands, Andrei is ready to kill her. Dosifei, the leader of the Old Believers, intervenes and entrusts Emma to Marfa. He exhorts the Khovanskys to fight for the preservation of the Orthodox religion. Prince Ivan orders his men to guard the city. Dosifei, along with his followers, prays for the preservation of his religion.

  ACT II

  In his study, Prince Golitsin reads a love letter from the Tsarevna Sophia; he wonders if he can still trust her. His servant Varsonofiev announces Marfa, whom Golitsin has summoned to tell his fortune. Gazing into a bowl of water, the prophetess sees him surrounded by false friends and foretells his imminent disgrace, poverty, and banishment. Terrified, Golitsin dismisses Marfa and whispers to Varsonofiev that the woman must be drowned. Alone, Golitsin muses on the present state of his country and wonders if Marfa's prediction will indeed be his reward for a lifetime of distinguished service to the royal family. Ivan Khovansky bursts in and accuses the Tsarevna's adviser of using his influence to abolish the boyars' rights of hereditary precedence. The two men argue angrily but are interrupted by the arrival of Dosifei. Golitsin advises the monk not to interfere in the affairs of princes, but Dosifei reminds him that he, too, had been a prince, Prince Myshetsky, though he has renounced his title and his princely rights to become a monk. Dosifei persuades the two princes to join him in council on Russia's future, proposing an alliance between them leading to a return to the old principles of government based on traditional practices and the old faith, which Golitsin cannot accept. Outside, the hymns of a passing group of Old Believers rearouse Golitsin's anger, while Khovansky sees in them the saviors of Russia. Marfa reappears to tell how an attempt on her life by a servant of Golitsin was thwarted by a group of Peter the Great's bodyguards. The men are alarmed to learn of the presence of Peter's troops in the vicinity. Shaklovity enters to deliver a proclamation from the Regent accusing the Khovanskys of treason. Dosifei asks Shaklovity, "What was Tsar Peter's reaction to the proclamation?" "He called it a 'Khovanshchina' (a Khovansky intrigue) and ordered an investigation," replies Shaklovity.

  In the Streltsy quarter of Moscow, Marfa gives way to lamentations over her lost love and thoughts of future vengeance. Susanna, another Old Believer, overhears her and is appalled at what she regards as a text from the devil. Marfa's evocation of the joys of love drives Susanna to frenzied denunciation of Marfa. Dosifei intervenes in the venomous argument to console Marfa and send Susanna away, counseling Marfa to devote all her love and energies towards the dangerous affairs ahead of their sect. As they leave, Shaklovity appears and offers a prayer for his troubled native land. A group of Streltsy enter singing a drinking song which elicits violent rebukes from their disapproving wives. The quarreling is silenced by the scrivener who rushes in to report that foreign troops aided by the Tsar's guards have attacked the outskirts of the Streltsy quarter. Kuzka and the Streltsy call upon Prince Ivan to lead them against the attackers, but he tells them to submit to the will of the Tsar.

  ACT III

  In a hall in his palace outside Moscow, Prince Ivan Khovansky awaits the outcome of the Tsar's investigation of the charges of treason against him. His servant girls sing for him, but he finds their song too sad and requests a lively ballad. Varsonofiev interrupts with a message from Golitsin warning the Prince that his life is in danger. Khovansky ignores the warning and orders his Persian slaves to dance for him. Shaklovity arrives with a request from the Tsarevna for Khovansky's presence at a meeting of the Grand Council. Khovansky refuses until Shaklovity tells him that the Tsarevna has asked for him first and that there will be no meeting without him. The servant girls sing a song of praise to "The White Swan" as Prince Khovansky dons his robes of state. As the two men are about to leave, Shaklovity stabs the Prince; the servant girls scatter in terror, and Shaklovity stands over his victim, repeating with grim irony the final words of the interrupted song: "Praise and glory, my snow white swan."

  The people assemble in the square to watch the departure of Prince Golitsin into exile. Dosifei laments the fall of Golitsin and Khovansky and expresses fear for the young Andrei. From Marfa he learns that the Grand Council has decided upon the annihilation of the Old Believers. Prince Andrei enters and angrily demands news of Emma. When Marfa tells him she is safely beyond the frontier, he curses her and calls for the Streltsy. They appear, but not in answer to Andrei's call. Instead, they are carrying blocks for their own execution. The terrified Prince accepts Marfa's offer of a refuge and they flee. The Tsar's troops appear and announce that Peter has pardoned the Streltsy, and that he will appear before the crowd.

  Dosifei meditates on his struggle to defend the old religion and his decision to lead his followers to self-immolation. Intoning a chant of renunciation, the Old Believers prepare for death. Marfa tries to sustain Andrei's courage, and as trumpets announce the approach of the soldiers, and Dosifei calls his followers to the sacrifice, she gently leads Andrei into the church. The Tsar's soldiers arrive and stand horrified before the blazing pyre.

• Cast Page/Program

  
  To access the cast page and full program, click here.