After opening on Monday with a production of Un Ballo in Maschera that was mediocre by any professional standards, things could only get better for the Kirov Opera's tight-packed Verdi season at Covent Garden. Macbeth on Wednesday was certainly a step forward, though it was still doubtful that anyone, hand on heart, could have claimed that this was a world-class company performing at anything like its best.
The staging at least was a vast improvement on the meretricious rubbish served up by Andrei Konchalovsky for Ballo. David McVicar's production, designed by Tanya McCallin, was new in St Petersburg in April, and hasn't yet had all its precision knocked out of it by endless repetition. The stage is bare, right back to the walls, with just a few granite slabs and a couple of corpses hanging from a gantry to provide permanent features. The witches' cauldron is just a steaming hole in the floor and the cosy home life of the Macbeths is signalled by a giant guillotine blade suspended menacingly over their machinations.
The space is used well, with every ensemble and every chorus number carefully blocked, and there is a real sense of style in the way that the masses of bodies -whether witches, courtiers or soldiers - are moved around the stage. But the acting of most of the principals is neutral and inert.
The Lady Macbeth of Olga Sergeeva is one notable exception: she puts heart and soul into her performance, and sounded far more secure than she had two nights earlier in Ballo. Yet there was very little chemistry between her and the Macbeth of Sergei Murzaev, whose body language communicates nothing and who sings at an unvaried forte throughout the evening. When he reports on his murder of Duncan there isn't a trace of emotion or awareness of what he has done. The Banquo of Evgeny Nikitin is sturdily efficient, and the Macduff, Yuri Alexeev, a bit more than that - the way he attacked his final-act aria brought the one moment when the dramatic temperature started to rise.
For though the Kirov Orchestra played with confidence and power - if you like your Macbeth with a definite Russian tang, that is - Gergiev's conducting never really set the score ablaze, and did not communicate any consistent involvement to his cast. There were great moments - Gergiev certainly understands how Verdi's repeated rhythmic figures can build emotional climaxes of subtle complexity - but also long stretches of routine, going-through-the-motions singing and playing.
Related articles:
11.07.2001: Desperately disappointing Kirov
02.07.2001: The world's greatest opera company
02.07.2001: Cabbages and rings
