A Late Summer Night’s Dream
The annual Birgitta Festival has become one of the highlights of Tallinn's cultural calendar, and as ERR News' concert reviewer Mike Amundsen reports, this year's event certainly didn't disappoint.
Most people looking at the ruin of Pirita’s Birgitta nunnery would be struck by its solemn grandeur or perhaps feel the tug of history at the sight of the half-gabled shell of the massive, late-medieval structure. Eri Klas saw a concert venue.
For this, arts lovers from Estonia and beyond can be thankful. Klas’ brainchild, the Birgitta Festival, has been reanimating this ancient space with marvelous musical theater every summer for the past eight years.
Klas, the longtime Estonian conductor, has brought a decidedly diverse and international flavor to the Birgitta Festival over the years. Birgitta 2012 was no exception. A key collaborator this year was the Mari State Opera and Ballet Theater of Russia. The Mari are a Finno-Ugric minority from west central Russia’s Mari El Republic. As such they are ethnic and linguistic cousins to Estonians.
Estonian ballet director Mai Murdmaa, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and choirs, and the Mari State Opera and Ballet Theater combined to produce two 20th century masterpieces from German Carl Orff - “Triumph of Aphrodite” and “Carmina Burana.”
The stunning “Carmina Burana” was the highlight of this year’s Birgitta. Beautifully choreographed dancing, massive choral muscle, brilliant orchestration and sublime solo work made for an overpowering visual and musical experience. The Estonian National Opera’s Jassi Zahharov never disappoints. Whether in britches and period costume for the opera or dressed down in a suit and tie for Orff’s oratorio, the Estonian is a talented, commanding baritone. Soprano Marion Melnik and tenor Oliver Kuusik kept pace with Zahharov as vocal soloists. But if there was ever a truly ensemble effort this was it, and the dancing was as much a spectacle as the music.
For those with a keen sense of the absurd, Dmitri Shostakovich’s “The Nose”, based on Gogol’s short story, was the very thing. Composed roughly a decade after the Russian Revolution and a few years after the civil war, the chaotic zeitgeist permeates the action and especially the score of “The Nose." The cacophony can be troubling to gentle ears, including mine. In fact the whole thing was a bit too revolutionary even for revolutionaries. After its first run, “The Nose” was buried without a peep until the 1970s.
Birgitta’s “Nose” was the work of the soloists and symphony orchestra of Moscow’s Pokrovsky Chamber Music Theater. A standout performer was the Nose himself, played by Borislav Moltsanov. Moltsanov’s Nose singing in a strange pitch in the setting of Saint Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral was as disconcerting as it was funny.
The sardonic weirdness of "The Nose” was relieved by the sweetness and light of Mozart, if not in the action of his “Don Giovanni” and then in the music. The Don Juan legend was brought to a contemporary setting by English director Daniel Slater. This worked well, but with such amazing music it’s fair to say that just about any staging with reasonable action could have sufficed.
It was a fabulous group effort backed by the Juri Alperten-led Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. Bass-baritone Joshua Bloom was splendid in the demanding role of Leporello and a definite crowd favorite at the curtain call. Soprano Aile Asszonyi’s Elvira provided stellar moments of comedy and aria artistry. Estonian Lauri Vasar brought the right mix of swagger and good humor to the doomed libertine title character. “Don Giovanni” is rightly considered a masterpiece. The timelessness of Mozart’s genius found an apt home in Pirita’s hallowed ground.
I should mention that there was more to Birgitta than just the shows mentioned above. I have written of those I attended. I am sure that the other performances were equally wonderful, which leads me to suggest the following. If, at the gloaming of a mid-August evening in 2013, you find yourself drawn to the blandishments of Old Town decadence, consider boarding bus 1A to Pirita instead. A ninth Birgitta Festival will be on. You won’t be disappointed.