Five stars for Bavarian State Opera’s stunning War and Peace

Last Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of the deaths of Stalin and Prokofiev. In Munich, Bavarian State Opera marked the occasion with a new production of Prokofiev’s War and Peace (1946), a Stalinistic hymn to the great patriotic war that could hardly be less appropriate to the current context, unless you are Vladimir Putin.

Both conductor Vladimir Jurowski and stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov considered cancelling the planned production when Russia invaded Ukraine. But after sober reflection, they decided that with a few nips and tucks, an omission here and a rearrangement there, the piece could become a grand statement on the futility of war.

“Again war. Again sufferings, necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for; again fraud, again the universal stupefaction and brutalisation of men.” Tolstoy’s quote, from 1904, is projected above the stage as the first notes sound.

Tcherniakov’s set is a painstaking reconstruction of the grand hall of Moscow’s House of the Unions. It was here that Lenin and Stalin lay in state, here also that Communist party congresses and the infamous Moscow show trials were held, and here, before the Soviet era, that grand balls for the nobility were given. It was used as a concert hall and even, during the first world war, as an improvised hospital.

In Tcherniakov’s hands, it becomes a refugee centre during an unspecified conflict. Its residents, camped out on field beds and mattresses, begin to act out a series of stories — of grand balls, with fans and fancy hats improvised from newspapers; of war games and disasters. As time passes, the games become deadly serious. By the end, when Field Marshal Kutuzov is laid out in state, the participants have begun to understand the horror of their own capacity for violence.

Tcherniakov’s production is fanatically detailed and ferociously ambitious. In all the confusion of the opera’s turgid second act (the “War” part), he tells the fates of the individual characters with clarity and compassion, while striving to make grander points about Russian aggression and complicity. Sometimes, the grander points are lost in the melee — there are moments when you cannot be sure whose side he is on. Perhaps that is intentional.

Jurowski is on the side of music itself. The stomach-churning violence and bittersweet lyricism of his approach to the score get under your skin and stay there. Jurowski is master of the big picture and the small moment, driving the work forwards but always leaving room to breathe, time for moments of tenderness, space for the singers to be heard.

And what a cast has been assembled. All 43 soloists deserve mention, as does the chorus — no one is less than excellent. As Natascha, Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska has vast expressive range, following her character’s journey from naive optimism through to tragic devastation with power and poise. Moldovan baritone Andrey Zhilikhovsky is equally outstanding as his namesake Andrei, performing with heroism, nuance and tremendous charisma. Armenian tenor Arsen Soghomonyan is perhaps the most likeable figure of all as Pierre, with an immensely touching sweetness in his lyrical passages, coupled with phenomenal stamina and musicality.

You could take a barrel of superlatives and pour it out over the rest of the cast. What Jurowski and Tcherniakov have achieved with their performers is what you hope for most when you go to the opera — a unified cast performing with passionate commitment, utterly certain that what they are doing truly matters.

For the curtain calls, some of the performers wore Ukrainian flag T-shirts or lapel pins. Nothing in Tcherniakov’s staging is that obvious or unambiguous, but in its very complexity, the production triumphs.

This War and Peace is a monumental achievement. See it if you can.

★★★★★

To March 18, returning in July, staatsoper.de