Munich (dpa / lby) – “War and Peace” at the Bavarian State Opera: Directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, a difficult work will be performed in Munich on Sunday evening. The opera by Sergei Prokofiev is based on the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy and is set in 1812 at the time of Napoleon invading Russia. A piece full of Stalinist propaganda, with hymns of praise and heroism to the Russian military and Holy Mother Russia, with a premiere on the 70th anniversary of the deaths of Prokofiev and Stalin, who both died on March 5, 1953. Is it allowed to play something like this when Russia is attacking Ukraine?
“In this production we interpret it in such a way that there is no need to be ashamed of Prokofiev,” assures the Munich general music director Vladimir Jurowski. “As a result, Prokofiev will nolens volens become a composer critical of society and the system, which he never was.” The audience does not expect a costume piece with a detailed retelling of the story of 1812 – it is the view of today, reveals the conductor, who will also conduct “War and Peace”. There are also no different nations. “The play is told from the perspective of a single society, a nation, a human community. Enemies, if there are any, are found or invented within that society. There is no enemy from outside.”
And yet Jurowski admits: “Misunderstandings can arise because we sometimes use symbols that are also very suitable for propaganda in today’s Russia. But it depends on the sign with which it is used.” That’s theatre, “that’s an art that deals with visual metaphors”. Does the opera make all this so clear to the audience? “Of course, it requires a lot of thinking,” admits Jurowski. You should be able to draw your own conclusions.
Jurowski, who was born in Moscow and left the then Soviet Union in 1990, cannot be accused of pandering to Russia or even its President Vladimir Putin. Not only that he likes to wear a yellow and blue Ukraine pin with a dove of peace on his lapel. After the Russians invaded the neighboring country, he had the national anthem of Ukraine played several times at concerts.
Then why not reinterpret “War and Peace” and bring the events in the Ukraine to the stage? “It would be wrong to show him. Probably even cynical,” Russian director Tcherniakov recently told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We try to approach this issue very sensitively. But of course it has something to do with it.” The Stalinist propaganda in the second part of the opera was defused anyway. Some things have been deleted and changed, explained Tcherniakov, who worked with an international cast. “We gathered 12 or 13 nationalities, all from former Soviet Union countries, from Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Lithuania, Uzbekistan…”
According to the director, there were no difficulties during the rehearsals. “The way we all agree leads to an almost utopian situation here,” he continued in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. “We’re all holding hands, we’re in the same boat and we’re doing something together with great enthusiasm. What’s emerging here is the utopia of a community that might not even exist in real life.”