War and Peace review – ferocity and passion in Prokofiev's rare opera

Wales Millennium Centre, CardiffWelsh National Opera’s welcome revival of this seldom-seen Tolstoy adaptation is sung with distinction amid chilling present-day echoesSergei Prokofiev had long planned making Tolstoy’s epic novel into an opera. Two defining factors spurred him into feverish composition: love for the young Mira Mendelson, who would become his second wife, and Hitler’s invasion of  Russia. As Welsh National Opera’s new staging opens, Tolstoy’s handwriting is seen – the Russian script being laboriously formed, white against a black background – as peasants and soldiers congregate. Their patriotic chorus erupts with the ferocity of an aural bombardment. As they sing, Tolstoy himself is seated among them, recording his nation’s resistance to Napoleon’s invasion. Pierre Bezhukov, wonderfully portrayed by tenor Mark Le Brocq, is essentially Tolstoy’s reflection of himself . The final image will be of Bezhukov, quill in hand, passing sheet after sheet to his beloved Natasha. They are both Tolstoy and his Sonya, and Prokofiev and Mira. The opera’s sequence of lyric-dramatic scenes – peace in the first half, war in the second – reduces Tolstoy’s rich tapestry to bare threads while making huge demands on any company, and has generally gained more detractors than admirers. Yet director David Pountney’s boldness and Tomáš Hanus’s impassioned marshalling of WNO’s musical forces should help tip opinion in Prokofiev’s favour in a production that uses a score based on Katya Ermolaeva and Rita McAllister’s new critical edition of the composer’s original, together with later material. Continue reading…
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