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   Financial Times / December 12, 2007 / Arts
   
   War and Peace
   Metropolitan Opera, New York
   MARTIN BERNHEIMER
   
   Nothing exceeds likes excess. The Maryinsky version of
   Prokofiev's wild and sometimes wonderful "War and Peace,"
   which returned to the Met on Monday after a five-year lapse,
   boasts a cast that would make any statistician delirious.
   Called to duty for this four-and-a-quarter hour marathon
   were 52 soloists, 118 choristers, 41 dancers and 227
   supernumeraries, not to mention a horse, a dog, a goat and
   four chickens. Somehow, I missed the chickens.
   
   The conductor, of course, was Valery Gergiev. He directed
   the musical sprawl and the expressive traffic with much
   sweep, fair cohesion and chancy precision. Refocusing the
   Tolstoy narrative, Andrei Konchalovsky imposed fluid,
   quasi-cinematic images on George Tsypin's skeletal set, the
   action precariously centered atop a revolving dome.  The
   result: a very busy, reasonably modern, intermittently
   poignant night at the opera.
   
   Two singers, both making debuts, offered revelations. Marina
   Poplavskaya ennobled the vicissitudes of Natasha with
   lustrous tone and febrile impetuosity. The soprano from
   Moscow moved like a dancer, sang like an angel. Tall, dashing
   and eminently sensitive, Alexej Markov provided a magnetic,
   melancholic counterforce as Andrei. The baritone from Viborg
   conveyed equal parts fervour, elegance and eloquence.
   
   Kim Begley, a British stranger in this Russian paradise,
   held his own brilliantly as an awkwardly heroic Pierre
   Bezukhov.  Optimistically drafted for the climactic platitudes
   of Marshal Kutuzov, Samuel Ramey tried in vain to make
   histrionic strength outweigh vocal weakness. Time has taken
   its toll. Oleg Balashov made a properly forceful cad of
   Anatol. Vassily Gerello returned as an oddly pallid Napoleon.
   Ekaterina Semenchuk (Sonya) and Larisa Shevchenko (Madame
   Akhrosimova) defended two generations of  Maryinsky honour
   in supporting vignettes, and Nikolai Gassiev offered a wily
   character-study of Platon Karatayev. The all-important
   chorus, trained by Donald Palumbo, made a mighty, reverberant,
   resilient noise, and the orchestra responded to Gergiev's
   vague commands with dauntless bravado.
   
   When all was sung and roared, one left the house filled
   with admiration rather than awe. Blame Prokofiev. The first
   half of the opera rises with nervy lyricism. The second
   half falls with blaring bombast.  Peace, as usual, is better
   than war.

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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