# Prince Igor at The Met



## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

This is somewhat belated but I've only just managed to watch it. At the risk of sounding like a disgruntled texting teen, I'll just say "WTF?!?"

Different plot. Reordered scenes. Different music. What's the point?
I feel sorry for anyone who was introduced to the opera with this production.

The end of the first act is supposed to be some of the most exciting 12mins of opera on stage.
Here's what the rest of the world watch... (fast forward to 43:10)





Here's what New York had to suffer through. Someone left the doors unlocked at the asylum.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Met*

You convinced me.
The Met blew it.


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## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

That's a lot better than the Met version. I'm not actually familiar with other versions of the opera. There are many since Borodin died before completing it. I read that this new edition restores some of the music Borodin wrote that was discarded by Rimsky and Glazounov.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

That's a really long opera isn't it?


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## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

It's kind of long. Not Wagner long though.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

not even Handel-long (with ballets ~4 hours).


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Actually I enjoyed the Met's version on its own merits. It made it into a coherent story line instead of a series of episodes. With a work like that, which was in no way finished, complete, and set in stone, that seems fine. Whatever you have been watching previously has also been cobbled together, it's just that you re used to it.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

mamascarlatti said:


> Whatever you have been watching previously has also been cobbled together, it's just that you re used to it.


Quite true...still didn't save me from boredom though


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I agree. As Borodin never completed the opera and himself shifted around the scenes/acts a few times I am not sure a production can be faulted for not doing the same as some other production, especially in a case such as this when they chose their scenes and the order based on historical/musical reasons. Tcherniakov did not say I have this concept, how can I cut up this opera to fit; he did it the other way around: we are going to strip this opera down to what Borodin wrote and order it based on Borodin's notes and then work from there.

Of course after this composer's-intentions approach to the music and libretto he continued less conservatively with regard to the story. I would argue that this version is very faithful to the meaning of the work, the overall allegory remains, even though the details are changed.

This is what I wrote about the Met's Igor in another thread:



mountmccabe said:


> I saw the Tcherniakov-directed _Prince Igor_ in the house about a week before the broadcast. I have not written anything here because I wasn't sure what to say. Overall I was disappointed.
> 
> I would agree with jess that everything sounded wonderful. On that front I was completely overjoyed.
> 
> ...


As noted I was somewhat disappointed as well, but mostly in the opera itself. I think this approach shows the flaws in what was left by Borodin (though of course we cannot be too hard on him as he was not done and likely would have addressed many of these flaws) and shows the value in what was added by Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov.

It's a gorgeous piece of music, overall, and I am thrilled I got to hear it. I am also glad that I got to hear it in Russian, unlike the last production by the Met which was sung in Italian.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

mountmccabe said:


> I am also glad that I got to hear it in Russian, unlike the last production by the Met which was sung in Italian.


Eh?!? Why was it in Italian? I know it's New York and all but...


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

It was in Italian because it was last seen in 1917. The opera debuted in 1915. Of course this sort of thing was more common then; in those seasons the Met performed both Boris Godunov and Martha in Italian, The Golden Cockerel in French and Liszt's oratorio Die Legende von der heiligen Elisabeth in English.


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## Signor Crescendo (May 8, 2014)

I watched the Met Live in HD version, and I was disappointed. I'd seen a DVD of the Bolshoi production (



) a few years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Whereas this...!

Like a lot of modern productions, it's over-directed, and heavily charmless. The story is updated from the 12th century to some indeterminate date post-1900, so much of the atmosphere - the colour and pageantry - of the original is lacking. The Polovtsian camp scene is now a hallucination, depicted as a field of poppies: visually uninteresting and dramatically inert. There's black and white "war" footage and close-ups of Igor, like something from an art installation. The Polovtsian dances are now an orgy. The third act is a rubble-strewn wasteland. Act II (with its carousing choruses and collapsing ceilings) - which is played straight - is the strongest part of the opera, building to a powerful climax.

And yet the music is strong enough to survive. The good bits are very good (the prologue, Igor's monologue, the Polovtsian dances, the boyars' chorus), but it has its longueurs, especially in Acts I & II: lovely passages, but lacking dramatic thrust. How much of this is due to the production, I'm not sure, but I'd hazard a guess that music which seemed undramatic in this production would have much more effect if played in context!


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