Le Coq d'Or / The Golden Cockerel / Der Goldene Hahn

'Le Coq d'Or' was Rimsky's last opera, premièred as late as 1909. The story comes from Pushkin, but he'd been given the idea for the opera by a contemporary fairy-tale illustrator, I. Bilibin, whose cartoon of the Tsar Dodon - 'emperor of the whole earth' - was a satire on the expansionist longings of recent Russian Tsars; the Russo-Japanese War had just ended and the Russions had lost, to their amazement. Because of the obvious satirical political comments in the libretto, the première was actually delayed by a few years and indeed Rimsky died before ever seeing it staged. 'The Golden Cockerel' masquerades as a fairy-tale opera, that genre so beloved by the Russians, but the audience knew what the underlying import was, even after the Tsar's censors had forced changes to soften the satire.

Be that as it may, this production can be viewed without all the political baggage as a sumptuous and fantastic fairy tale set to music. I will not recount the plot except to say that when the Tsar Dodon discovers that his sons have been killed in battle that he has sent them into he decides that 'the older ones' (meaning himself and his older general, Polkan) should henceforth 'do the fighting' and spare the loss of the younger men of the realm. (Is that a sly comment on war in general, do you suppose?) The Tsar loses a final battle to invading forces only to find that they are commanded by a woman, the Queen of Shemakha, who on her entrance sings the only well-known aria from this opera, the so-called 'Hymn to the Sun.' He becomes besotted with love for the Queen and thus begins his downfall. His realm had been protected by the warnings of the magical Golden Cockerel, given him by the Astronomer, but at the end of the opera the Cockerel turns on him and pecks him to death. The Astronomer, in the Epilogue, asks the audience not to be too alarmed by what has happened, because 'only the Queen and I are real - all the others were simply illusions.'

The music for this opera is luscious Orientalism. The Queen's entrance aria, with which most of us are familiar from its inclusion in many recitals and TV appearances by coloratura sopranos, is typical of the Eastern melismas heard throughout the piece. There are recurring leitmotifs, most of which first occur in the prélude, and some recurring harmonic devices as well, e.g. the juxtaposition of the triads of D flat major and E major.

This production is extraordinarily beautiful visually. The simple stage setting is a neutral setting for sumptuous costumes that are Kabuki-inspired and are in saturated almost Day-Glo colors. The stage direction, done by a Kabuki actor, Ennosuke Ichikawa, requires the singers (all but one of them Russian) to move in the stereotypical style familiar from Kabuki theater. They all have the heavy Kabuki mask-like make-up. (Indeed, when I first saw the Astronomer I thought he was WEARING a mask until I saw a muscle twitch!) There is a good bit of very effective dancing - Rimsky included a fair amount of ballet music in the piece - which is also in the stylized Kabuki style. All in all, then, this production comes across as something both exotic and exciting, and in my view it fits the exotic story quite well. I'm not generally a fan of changing the settings of operas, but in this case it works very well, at least partly because for Western viewers Fairy-Tale Land and Japanese Kabuki theater have much in common.

The singers are, without exception, wonderful. In particular I would single out the rich-voiced basso of Albert Schagidullin as King Dodon, and the spot-on colorature of Olga Trifonova as the proto-Turandot Queen of Shemakha. My highest praise goes to the high tenor of Barry Banks as the Astronomer. I'd love to hear/see him in Prokofiev's 'The Nose' whose protagonist has a similar almost impossibly high tessitura.

The production was filmed at a live performance at the Châtelet in Paris. The wonderful chorus was imported from the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg, and the Orchestre de Paris was led with a light hand and rhythmic flexibility by American conductor Kent Nagano. This is a short opera - only about 1h45m - and the end came too soon.

This production of a rarely mounted opera is recommended for those wishing to broaden their operatic horizons.

Scott Morrison

To add to J. Scott Morrison's excellent review of this work... I have been a longtime admirer of Rimsky-Korsakov's score and found this DVD to be something of a revelation.

My introduction to classical music occurred when my father brought home a $3.99 LP of Le Coq d'Or at a local grocery store; I was sixteen. (Hugo Rignold and the London Philharmonic Orchestra on Alshire, if you must know.) Why? I have no idea. He didn't especially like classical music. But, intrigued, I listened to it once, twice, thrice, began to pick up the themes and melodies, and found I actually liked that kind of music. So this work has a special significance for me.

I saw it staged in a wonderful production in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in 1978, and have since wished to have it on videotape - now I do.

My only complaint is the minimalist settings and the kabuki style makeup and acting. Being the only recording of this work, I would have preferred a more conventional Russian fairytale setting - the kind of thing Bilibin drew. In other words, in the style of a children's book from the early 1900's, when the work was written. Perhaps the sets could emulate the style of one of those charming Russian painted boxes...

However, having said this, I can also appreciate the artistic vision of this production. The primary value of the minimalist set and highly stylized movements and make up is to reinforce the suspicion that perhaps Dodon, the Queen and the Astrologer are archetypes of some larger tale and significance. (Surely, the Queen is a femme fatale - the scene where she taunts Dodon reminds me of Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings in "The Blue Angel.") This is borne out in the notes in the DVD's booklet, quoting the librettist V. Bel'sky: "...Pushkin has shrouded in mystery the relationship between his two fantastical characters: The Astrologer and the Queen. Did they hatch a plot against Dodon? Did they meet by accident, both intent on the king's downfall? The author does not tell us, and yet this is a question to be solved in order to determine the interpretation of the work." I like to think that perhaps there are, or could be, other Astrologer/Queen stories - too bad Rimsky isn't around to score them!

The simplest and most direct interpretation, of course, is that it was Rimsky-Korsakov's criticism of his government, which makes perfect sense. Rimsky had a definite political side. His Dodon was the blockheaded Tsar, and, in retrospect, could be also viewed as an even more blockheaded Russian Socialist government.

Having seen this production, I now appreciate this work much more than I ever did listening to the orchestral suite or the opera on LPs. And, once again, the booklet helps. Prior to purchasing this DVD, I never knew that Pushkin adapted his story "The House of the Weathercock" from a tale by Washington Irving, "The Alhambra." (You can google it and find it on the web to read, and you should. The Spanish/Moorish setting is interesting.) What fascinates me is that one of the themes of the original work - comfort and safety, warning and strife - made it into the opera. Dodon snoozes, "rules from his bed," and dreams of the mysterious Queen (again reinforcing a notion that she's an archetypical character). The rooster cries, and the army is dispatched. War and peace, peace and war.

Okay, okay, perhaps I'm over intellectualizing here. But I'm delighted to think that Rimsky's last opera isn't a mere childish fantasy; that it has real themes and meanings underlying the Oriental opulence of the music and staging.

Anyway, a recommended purchase. Best of all, my seventeen-year-old daughter expressed interest in it and so we recently watched it together one (unforgettable) snowy Sunday. Now it's family lore.

Long live Tsar Dodon!

Wes Clark

wes@wesclark.com

I want to endorse completely the lengthy reviews by Scott Morrison and Wes Clark. This is a fantastic (in two senses of the word) opera and is beautifully staged. Regrettably, it is performed only rarely--the only other recent major performance that I know of was at the Bregenz Festival several years ago--though a quarter of a century ago the New York City Opera used to perform it when Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle were members of the company. The Chatallet performance recorded here was originally a co-production with the San Francisco Opera, but SFO cancelled (or, I hope, postponed) it for financial reasons. In the absence of opportunities to see Coq d'Or in person this DVD offers a wonderful alternative for those not acquainted with the story to experience a wonderful opera visually as well as musically. I have long loved the music (on CDs), it is Rimsky Korsakov's best in my view, and it was pure delight to finally experience the whole opera via this DVD. I cannot give it a higher recommendation.