Crossing the borders

Tag : Designer Curtain

As the warning bell rings and the lights dim in the theatre, thereis a buzz of anticipation that seems special even for a new work inthe Stars Of The White Nights festival programme, thethree-month-long cultural buffet that nourishes St Petersburg'slong summer nights. The majority of the chorus and orchestra isRussian, but the principal singers are Polish. How will theaudience react to this breaching of their artistic borders?
The first thing to note is that the production's Polish director,Mariusz Trelinski, has abandoned Szymanowski's 12th-centurytrappings in favour of modern costumes and design. Instead of theculture-clash disruption of a Christian king's Sicilian court bythe god Dionysus disguised as a shepherd, with scenes set inPalmero Cathedral and an ancient Greek temple, we open on theslate-grey interior of a contemporary church. King Roger (AndrzejDobber) is dressed in a long black coat, wearing sunglasses tointimidate his subjects. When the bleached-blond Shepherd (PavloTolstoy) arrives, the king's thugs beat him up and kick him whenhe's down. For an audience who grew up under the KGB, this surelyhits closer to home than any allegory about the transformativepower of paganism on organised religion. Later acts bring aBacchanalian orgy and a sequence of visual projections that remindsme of a Chemical Brothers live set or a scene from 2001: A SpaceOdyssey.
During one of the lengthy intervals, I drag Mills off to one of theMariinsky's quieter corners to discuss the production and how itfits into his plans for Edinburgh. He is enthusiastic about theadventurous direction, believing that Trelinkski's approach hasfreed up the opera's "archetypal" elements.
"You can look at those people as former Polish prime minister andpresident General Jaruzelski," he says. "It could be Poland beforeSolidarity; it could be The Sopranos. It's about powerrelationships. And it gives the most fantastic breadth to themusic."
Mills, who was appointed director of the EIF in October 2006, hasfound a musical soul-mate in conductor Valery Gergiev. The45-year-old Australian has invited the 55-year-old native of theOssetian Caucasus to take up what amounts to a residency inEdinburgh this August. Gergiev will conduct not only King Roger,but performances of Shchedrin's The Enchanted Wanderer,Rachmaninov's Aleko and the third act of Prokofiev's Semyon Kotko,as well as the same composer's cycle of seven symphonies andselected other orchestral works.
"I hope you hear King Roger again in Scotland, because Gergiev willbuild from this," Mills tells me. "He has absolutely got his houseand now he'll decorate it."
Back in the Mariinsky's auditorium, I swap seats with a colleagueand sit in the front row, directly behind Gergiev's podium in theorchestra pit. His left arm makes large sweeping gestures,encouraging swells of sound and diminishing whispers from themusicians. His right arm sticks out at 90 degrees from his body,turning sharply inwards at the elbow, the fluttering tremors of hisfingers caressing the notes as his hand moves down through the air.It makes for a striking combination of physical strength andartistic sensitivity, the very elements that have seen Gergiev (asgeneral director and artistic director) shake off the Mariinsky'sSoviet legacy (when it was known to the wider world as the Kirov)and broaden its repertoire to become an international culturalforce.
Hard-working and charismatic, with hooded eyes and designerstubble, it's easy to get swept up in Gergiev's wake. And, afterthe curtain falls on King Roger, I do. I'm asked to meet himon-stage after he has thanked the performers. It's still lightoutside, but the clock says it is approaching 11pm. I'm ready toslip off for a late dinner, but Gergiev issues a further invitationto come with him to a restaurant behind the theatre. The walls ofthis establishment are covered by the signatures of famous stars ofopera and ballet. On a piano stands a photograph of a groupcontaining Gergiev and Vladimir Putin; and it's not the Russianprime minister who dominates the frame.
As the wine and the vodka begin to flow, cast members cross theroom to have their photograph taken with the maestro. Phrases ofsong flicker from table to table, as professional voices readythemselves for informal fun. They say it's not over until the fatlady sings. Looking around this young and fit ensemble, there's nota fat lady or gentleman among them. Appropriately, then, the partymight go on for some time yet ...
The following day, I realise that there's another side to themaestro's generosity with his time. An interview has been promised,but I am continually bumped from his schedule as he squeezes inother commitments. On top of his many Mariinsky roles, he isartistic director of the White Nights Festival, principal conductorof the London Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor ofthe Metropolitan Opera in New York.
The interview is set for the hour before the Mariinsky Ballet takesover the stage with a triple bill of one-act works choreographed byGeorge Balanchine. But Gergiev is locked in a meeting, and insteadI'm taken on a backstage tour. Then we aim for the intervals, butItalian President Giorgio Napolitano has decided to visit, andGergiev must be on hand for him. Finally, after a magnificentperformance of Bizet's Symphony In C, I am ushered into Gergiev'soffice. I dive straight into asking about his perspective onMills's "Artists Without Borders" theme.
"I did not ask Jonathan, What's your vision?'" Gergiev says, "but Isense that, as a composer and musician himself, he very muchbelieves in the power of music. Today, Poland and Russia do notenjoy the best of times in terms of relationships for certainreasons - because of the Soviet past, because Poland is now leaningtowards America and Nato, discussing a system of missiles whichwill protect maybe Europe, maybe America, and be based in Poland.But we're musicians. We're not talking about missiles here; we aretalking about the beauty, power and communicative strength ofmusic. Jonathan, being a relatively new artistic director, bringshis own vision and, if he manages to put Polish and Russian artiststogether - and Polish and Russian organisations, which is moretricky - then that's already quite an achievement."
Mills's vision seems to embody something greater than anold-fashioned "cultural exchange" programme. In the new Europe, thearts can open up debate and cause audiences to think afresh. At thetop end, it's a question of those with cultural power realisingthat they have a duty to use that power for social, perhapspolitical, effect. For Gergiev, this became a reality four yearsago when Chechen separatists took hostages in a school in Beslan inthe North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. After a seriesof explosions and a gun battle with security forces, hundreds ofcivilians were killed, many of them children. Gergiev, because ofhis roots in this area, went on national television to appeal forcalm.
"Well, I wouldn't talk to the people of Sri Lanka or Bangladesh ifsomething terrible happened there because, basically, they hardlyknow me," he explains. "But in this city, nearly everyone knows me.It was such a huge tragedy I don't like to talk about this, it is adifficult thing even to think about. But someone had to do it. Imyself went to the president of Russian TV, and in five minutes hestopped everything. He understood it was maybe one of the very fewchances to do something really significant, so I was on the air inabout 15, 20 minutes. It was not political; it was just human."
Mills wouldn't make claims for his 2008 festival programme toassume anything as weighty as this. And yet it's possible toimagine how juxtapositions of one performance against another cancreate, in the minds of the audience, a third entirely separateidea. What thoughts might be engendered by seeing the PalestinianNational Theatre's production of Jidariyya a mere 24 hours afterthe Scottish Chamber Orchestra performs Handel's oratorio Israel InEgypt? Or by contrasting the rhythms of the Whirling Dervishes ofTurkey with dance troupe Rosas's programme of works set to themusic of Steve Reich?
"It's not that I believe in themes or not in themes," argues Mills."My starting point in this is: what is a festival? Whatdistinguishes a festival from something else? Historically theyhave often been rites of passage, rites of spring. Sociologicallythere have also been those moments where they act like a pressurevalve for a society, particularly rigid societies in times ofeconomic hardship.
"What is a festival today? I don't pretend to have the answers, butI'm looking for them. The narrative that we've created this year isone that I think is very relevant and very exciting because it's apersonal response to the experience of living in Europe today. It'snearly 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, and I think things arestarting to unravel in a very interesting way. Internationalismneeds to be taken face-on, very honestly, and I think you'll findthat my festivals, over the next four years, are an attempt tointerpret this question of internationalism in a different way."
The interval bell has rung again, and it's time to take our seatsin the splendour of the Mariinsky. Somewhere in the building,Valery Gergiev is extricating himself from yet another meeting. Hemakes his way, amid applause, to the podium. There is music to beplayed and work to be done.
King Roger is at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, August 25 and 27www.eif.co.uk