Liszt: Années De Pélérinage (Première Année Suisse), Deux Légendes – Francesco Piemontesi

   in Opera Now (Oct, 2015)
Depressing for all the right reasons is Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride, in Dmitry Tcherniakov’s production from the Berlin Staatsoper, which is a bold interpretation. He sets the opera in a television station, where traditional Russian scenes are staged and broadcast, while the truth behind the multimedia scenes shows the creation of a virtual tsar and the search for his bride by TV executives who manipulate state propaganda. This is played out in a series of rooms on a revolve, so the action flows uninterrupted, and we are privy to the email machinations of the Tsar on screen. Daniel Barenboim offers a smooth reading of the score, and the cast is outstanding. …