Orleanskaya Deva (The Maid of Orleans) Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Premiere: Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, 1881 Conductor Daniele Callegari; director/set and costume designer Massimo Gasparon; lighting designer Rupert Murray Sung in Russian
Some deride him as the king of kitsch; others claim his music, especially his operatic music, has been consistently misunderstood in Western Europe. Some say his homosexuality is irrelevant to his artistic output; others that a sympathetic approach to his sexual orientation is crucial to a successful interpretation of his theatrical oeuvre. Both sides of the Tchaikovsky debate appear to agree, however, that this late and almost totally unknown work presents the Russian composer at his most ambiguous. Aiming for a grand opera on the scale of Meyerbeer, and determined to write an action-packed show which would grab the attention of Western opera-goers, he chose the overblown topic of Joan of Arc, complete with battle scenes, angelic choruses and a coronation. He couldn't, however, resist the romantic angle. Unlike the manly heroines of Schiller and Barbier, Tchaikovsky's Joan is a complex creation, all chain-mail on the outside, yet with a heart of pure marshmallow. Torn between her divine mission to save France from the beastly Britishers and her love for the turncoat knight Lionel, she chooses the latter - a bad decision for, with dismaying promptness, her lover is hacked to pieces and she is lightly marinaded, setting the scene for the gruesome climax familiar to even the most reluctant student of French history.
Historical reconstruction is nothing new for Massimo Gasparon. An architect by training, the Venetian-born director/designer restored the theatre at Bibbiena, near Florence, and has been closely associated with productions of baroque opera there. He knew Orleanskaya Deva would be opera of a different order - still, he says, the music surprised him, and not unpleasantly, either.
"I find this piece very classical in the way that it is written," he says. "There are many suggestions, hints, that Tchaikovsky has taken from other operas. He was very fond of Verdi, and La Forza del Destino was given in St Petersburg just a few years before this opera was written, so it is very Italian in style - the melodies are easy, they come one by one, there are leitmotifs, one for Joanna, one for the angel, one for the father. Musically the structure is very strong. Every act has an introduction, a sort of small overture, which has all the themes that we are going to listen to during that act, and I think it's helpful, because we can recognise them and follow the story."
Which will be good news to anyone concerned about the opera being sung in Russian - without the help of surtitles. So much for musical clarity; but Gasparon's production aims, too, to achieve dramatic clarity. "It's not easy to do a procession and a cathedral and all the rest when you have just six metres of stage, so I've decided not to do the traditional mise en scene. In the music, Tchaikovsky uses many symbols so I will use visual symbols. The staging will be very stylised; from the beginning the audience will realise that they are not looking at Cavalleria Rusticana, with its realistic setting in a village square."
Colour will be an essential ingredient in creating this heightened atmosphere, and Gasparon, who has designed the costumes and sets himself, has chosen gold and blue, the colours of the French kings, for the early scenes, with a golden tree in the centre of the stage. "Until the English arrive and they are red," he says. "Everything gets dark then."
He is full of praise for his predominantly Russian cast, who not only sound right but also, he says, look right. "They are young they are credible." Getting the cast right is crucial, he maintains, for a successful production of Orleanskaya Deva. "It's a pity it isn't done more often, and I think it's because of the casting requirements. You need a soprano or a mezzo for Joanna, then you need one tenor for the king and another soprano for the queen, who both have very difficult arias, then there's the father, the prime minister, Lionel . . ." It sounds like an awful lot of trouble for an unknown opera, but Gasparon is convinced of the opera's merits. "I love it. It's a massive piece, it's high-level inspiration from beginning to end, and it's really very dramatic. It's a good chance to let people know this repertoire - because if it's possible to do it here, on this tiny stage, it's possible everywhere."
