It looks like you waited too long.  There are no tickets left for the
SF Symphony's Thursday and Saturday performances of Rimsky-Korsakov's
"Mlada," although there may be some available for Sunday.  If at first you
don't succeed...  you may have to wait another 110 years.  That's how long
it took for "Mlada" to make it from Saint Petersburg to San Francisco, the
weird, inexcusable "Rimsky curse" making its impact again.

Why is this wonderful work neglected - along with a dozen others by Rimsky?
It is, certainly in the US, but pretty much everywhere outside Russia as
well.  Kudos, no, "slava!" to Michael Tilson Thomas for producing this
semi-staged version, a local premiere, as the conclusion of the Symphony's
Russian Festival.

Let the would-be buyer beware, however.  Much as I love this work,
diabetics must be warned.  This is rich, thick, sweet music, Wagner at
his most romantic, with a dose of Puccini, lots of Dvorak and - yes -
classy Hollywood 1930s soundtrack here and there, in what sounds like
John Williams orchestration.  A kind of Rhine Journey intersecting
with "La Rondine," Fafner breathing fire to Richard Strauss and early
Schoenberg accompaniment, and look at those 12 musicians playing
non-chromatic horns on-stage!  (Well, they did at the Mariinsky.)

If woodwind tremolo over massed strings, pan pipes with harps, throbbing
rhythms and soaring melodies don't ring your chimes, you may not be a
fellow "Mlada" fan.

Further disclosure: the convoluted story ("Disneyfied Wagner `Ring',"
according to MTT) won't help much.  What's the attraction then? The music,
the kind of Russian cast we haven't heard here since the Unshaven One
switched coasts and took the Kirov with him, and the opportunity to see the
"retired" but ever so youthful Evelyn Cisneros dance again - choreographed
by Val Caniparoli, who was responsible for Cisneros' "Lambarena" triumph,
among many others.

WHAT is "Mlada" then? An opera-ballet, with a story line from pre-Christian
Slavic legends.  For starters, Mlada (Cisneros), fiancee to Prince Yaromir
(Gegam Grigorian) is murdered by Prince Mstivoy (Tigran Martirossian) and
his daughter Voislava (Ljuba Kazarnovskaya).  Underworld spirits - good
and bad - get involved, dream sequences and spectacular struggles ensue,
until Yaromir and Mlada have a stately apotheosis above storms and floods.
Imagine a straight line from "Aida" to the final scene (albeit with a
Spielberg touch) of "Gotterdammerung," and you'll have a pretty good idea.

Also in the cast: Susanna Poretsky, Susan Narucki, Vladimir Glushchak and
Brian Asawa.  Do check out what's left for Sunday.

Janos Gereben/SF
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