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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The Enchanted Wanderer is labelled as opera. If you think of the word opera from the Italian operare that makes sense: it just means `work'. But for me an opera has 1 or 2 good kills, a nice plot, some jealous lovers or lovers who're not allowed to be lovers so take some poison or someone's daughter has been killed and her dead body is presented to the male lead in a bag or the soprano throws herself into the rapids or from a high building. You won't get this in this strange work by the very respected composer Rodion Shchedrin. It sounds more or less like an Oratorio. There seems to be no action at all although the pictures in the beautiful booklet give the suggestion that there was some action in the live performance. There're some duets but the 3 lead singers do not seem to have any interaction; they just seem to sing. (My Russian is as bad as my Swahili though.) The orchestra is very subdued, very calm and seems not to give any comment on the action or give a clue what's going on. Sometimes there's a burst of activity but it lies down as soon as possible. You'll be treated with a constant flow of nice sounds for about 90 minutes but after 5 minutes you'll already think `what the heck is going on (not much I promise) and what is this all about'? It seems time stands still. If this is the intention of the composer he succeeds very well. Could I bear sitting this through without anything to do for my eyes, like it is at home? No, I went to the toilet. Could I bear it in the theater? I don't know, it's all a matter of taste anyhow, but if you compare this with the white hot action of an opera like Reimann's Medea - which is roughly from the same period - I bet most Westerners will be satisfied with that one. The recording doesn't help too. It's very very beautiful and neutral but somewhat backwardly recorded. So pump up the volume a little bit. The performance is exemplary.
As a filler you get a suite from Shchedrin's masterly ballet `The Humpbacked Horse' of which a complete recording existed on the late Olympia label. That one is to be preferred. Another filler is the hilarious Concerto for Orchestra nr.1, with it's pumping, jazzy bass playing. In this recording it's miked to far away so it sounds very neutral and tame. Compare this with the hysterical recording Svetlanov made of this piece and you'll hear how Shchedrin intended this piece: as fun. Sure it has the nearly false trumpet playing Svetlanov allowed in the 80s but it's fast, funny and over the top. Like it has to be, I think. It's available at Amazon on the Melodiya label, grab it!
So I think for the performance 4 stars but for the compositional quality of the `opera', 2?
As a filler you get a suite from Shchedrin's masterly ballet `The Humpbacked Horse' of which a complete recording existed on the late Olympia label. That one is to be preferred. Another filler is the hilarious Concerto for Orchestra nr.1, with it's pumping, jazzy bass playing. In this recording it's miked to far away so it sounds very neutral and tame. Compare this with the hysterical recording Svetlanov made of this piece and you'll hear how Shchedrin intended this piece: as fun. Sure it has the nearly false trumpet playing Svetlanov allowed in the 80s but it's fast, funny and over the top. Like it has to be, I think. It's available at Amazon on the Melodiya label, grab it!
So I think for the performance 4 stars but for the compositional quality of the `opera', 2?
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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2 reviews
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Pleasant modernism
4 Sep 2010
Format:Audio CD
Well-orchestrated, even if nowhere near as exciting as Christopher Rouse for example; but there are melodies here and there which makes it all quite nice music to listen to.
7 of 21 people found the following review helpful
A fairy-tale masterwork or religious kitsch? Each must decide.
13 April 2010
Format:Audio CD
Rodion Schchedrin is a divider, not a uniter. As head of the Composers Union from 1973 to 1990, he smbolized the Soviet system in all its corrupt glory under Brezhnev. Except for the famous Carmen Ballet that made his name as a young man (it's really just a glorified pop arrangement with massive percussion section), none of Shchedrin's music has stuck in the West. apparently Gergiev is making it a mission to bring his music to London, which the Guardian critic called "an appalling prospect," describing shchedrin's music as "a particularly gruesome level of triviality and meretriciousness." He hated this CD from the Mariinsky house label, but before I render an uninformed opinion -- my copy is a download lacking the 104 page booklet that accompanies it -- ere's the publicity blurb.
"Following works by Shostakovich and Tchaikovksy, the Mariinsky label turns to music by one of Russia's greatest living composers for its fourth release. Shchedrin's `concert opera' The Enchanted Wanderer was premièred in New York in 2002 and did not receive its Russian premiere until 2007. However it has rapidly entered the Mariinsky Theatre's repertory both in St Petersburg and on tour. Based on a story by the 19th-century Russian author Nikolai Leskov, the opera is steeped in Russian folklore and beliefs. The release also features four fragments from Shchedrin's 1955 ballet score The Little Humpbacked Horse and his 1963 Concerto for Orchestra Naughty Limericks."
as I said, a divider rather than a uniter. I think it's only natural that Gergiev wants to rehabilitate the past in Soviet music, but his strong advocacy of Shostakovich and Prokofiev hardly broke ground. As a political personage, the conductor is firmly on Putin's side, so it's no surprise that for all its tricky gimmicks, Shchedrin is essentially a backward-looking composer, closer to Khachaturian and Miaskovsky than to Gubaidulina and Scnittke. the fairy-tale basis of the Endhanted Wanderer harks back to Rimsky-Korsakov's fairy-tale sources. These legends remain close to the Russian heart, being more vital and essential than, say, the Brothers Grimm are to us in the West. I don't know if I'd buy two CDs to hear Shchedrin's opera, but it's as lively as any exciting film score -- and no deeper -- with the same accessible pop modernism as one finds in much of Prokofiev. Since a "chamber opera" is really an oratorio, the epic sweep of the Enchanted Wanderer will remind you quite often of Alexander Nevsky, not to mention Carmina Burana.
I can't resist quoting a bit more of the Guardian's entertaining vitriol when giving the opera's plot "It's about a wanderer who falls in love with a beautiful Gypsy only to discover she is also loved by the prince who employs him. It's a gruesome mix of sex and religion, and Shchedrin projects it all through vacuous arias and doomy choral writing, quasi-liturgical kitsch and sanitised folk effects." Even so, Gergiev may have a popular hit on his hands, and since the general public has no resentment of Shchedrin, they could be captivated.
"Following works by Shostakovich and Tchaikovksy, the Mariinsky label turns to music by one of Russia's greatest living composers for its fourth release. Shchedrin's `concert opera' The Enchanted Wanderer was premièred in New York in 2002 and did not receive its Russian premiere until 2007. However it has rapidly entered the Mariinsky Theatre's repertory both in St Petersburg and on tour. Based on a story by the 19th-century Russian author Nikolai Leskov, the opera is steeped in Russian folklore and beliefs. The release also features four fragments from Shchedrin's 1955 ballet score The Little Humpbacked Horse and his 1963 Concerto for Orchestra Naughty Limericks."
as I said, a divider rather than a uniter. I think it's only natural that Gergiev wants to rehabilitate the past in Soviet music, but his strong advocacy of Shostakovich and Prokofiev hardly broke ground. As a political personage, the conductor is firmly on Putin's side, so it's no surprise that for all its tricky gimmicks, Shchedrin is essentially a backward-looking composer, closer to Khachaturian and Miaskovsky than to Gubaidulina and Scnittke. the fairy-tale basis of the Endhanted Wanderer harks back to Rimsky-Korsakov's fairy-tale sources. These legends remain close to the Russian heart, being more vital and essential than, say, the Brothers Grimm are to us in the West. I don't know if I'd buy two CDs to hear Shchedrin's opera, but it's as lively as any exciting film score -- and no deeper -- with the same accessible pop modernism as one finds in much of Prokofiev. Since a "chamber opera" is really an oratorio, the epic sweep of the Enchanted Wanderer will remind you quite often of Alexander Nevsky, not to mention Carmina Burana.
I can't resist quoting a bit more of the Guardian's entertaining vitriol when giving the opera's plot "It's about a wanderer who falls in love with a beautiful Gypsy only to discover she is also loved by the prince who employs him. It's a gruesome mix of sex and religion, and Shchedrin projects it all through vacuous arias and doomy choral writing, quasi-liturgical kitsch and sanitised folk effects." Even so, Gergiev may have a popular hit on his hands, and since the general public has no resentment of Shchedrin, they could be captivated.
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