The Queen of Spades, Garsington: Romantic despair and mad obsession – with a strong whiff of sulphur
For the opera's bitter anti-hero Herman the way to that secret lies through the Countess's niece Lisa. But perhaps love for her will rescue him from his mad obsession? That's the intimate heart of the opera, but as this fabulous new production makes clear the story is rooted in the tensions of Russian society.
Director Jack Furness and designer Tom Piper summon that world's luxuriant, telling detail as well as its huge epic sweep and barely concealed brutality. In the barracks at the very beginning we see some lads playing soldiers. It's charming, and the excellent Garsington Opera Children's Chorus savour the Russian words. But when one of them falls down the others give his head a good kicking.
Later, when we see Herman explaining his infatuation with the socially unattainable Lisa to his good friend Tomsky, he gets contemptuous looks from the strolling St Petersburg high society, who admire themselves in the mottled mirrored detachable walls that make up the set. These spin round to reveal previously hidden worlds. It might be the make-believe of a Rococo theatre-in-a-theatre, or the grim cramped barracks where Herman dreams his dream of infinite wealth.
This picturesque but fundamentally grim world is enlivened by the dancers in the ball scenes and above all by Garsington's lavish 32-strong chorus, breathtakingly vigorous whether they're playing eager gamblers round the gambling-table or the Countess's chattering servants. Tchaikovsky's blazing score, which ranges from Mozartian pastiche to Russian charm to the tremor and shriek of the supernatural is brought to vivid life by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Garsington's musical director Douglas Boyd.
However the couple at the opera's heart are not quite so strong. Laura Wilde as Lisa has an impressive flaring voice but her performance felt rather dramatically tepid, and though Aaron Cawley's dark-grained baritone seemed right for Herman's obsession one missed a sense of that countervailing tenderness for Lisa that might have saved him.
The circle of army friends around Herman were more convincingly portrayed, above all gravel-voiced Robert Hayward as the jovial, ever-optimistic Tomsky. Roderick Williams as the stuffed-shirt Prince Yelestsky who loses out to the romantically fascinating Herman provided the subtlest singing of the performance, in his aria of dignified heartbreak.
However the evening's most spell-binding moment came from Diana Montague as the Countess, alone in her bedroom, recalling her young days in Paris when she learned the secret of the 'three cards'. On opening night, when the lights fell and the orchestral sound dropped to a whisper, you could feel everyone lean forward to catch the old witch's secrets. Sometimes the best moments at the opera are the quietest.
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The Guardian
15 hours ago
- The Guardian
Russia has also declared war on literature. Look at what's happening and be warned
'Manuscripts don't burn,' the protagonist of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita is told. This maxim is voiced by Satan, in reference to the Master's destroyed opus. Having restored it, the devil punishes the man who tipped off the police about 'illegal literature' kept in the Master's flat, so as to move there himself. Bulgakov didn't have to make this up. Surrounded by snitches, he managed to survive the Great Terror of the 1930s, as did his books. The Master and Margarita, on which he worked until his death in 1940, was first published uncensored in the USSR in 1973. In the early 1990s, censorship was officially lifted in Russia. For a while, one could publish almost anything, but now literature has again become a target of oppression. Things have become particularly dire since 2022, the year Russia invaded Ukraine and criminalised 'LGBT propaganda' among adults. In 2023 another bill was passed, outlawing the 'international LGBT public movement' as extremist. These laws are now being deployed in Russia's war on its book industry. Earlier this year, Russian police, armed with a list containing 48 titles, raided several bookshops, ordering the staff to remove copies of the books on the list. Administrative proceedings were launched and fines issued. In May, 10 people affiliated with Eksmo, the country's largest publishing corporation, were detained in Moscow. Three of them – Pavel Ivanov, Dmitry Protopopov and Artyom Vakhlyaev – were charged with 'organising activities of an extremist organisation', that is, distributing LGBTQ+-themed books. They remain under house arrest and face up to 12 years in prison. One of the books used as evidence in the case is Pioneer Summer, a bestselling novel by Elena Malisova and Katerina Sylvanova that was published in 2021 by Popcorn Books (a Moscow-based imprint now part-owned by Eksmo). Over the past three years, it has provoked outrage, particularly among Russian politicians, despite being anything but steamy: the teenage protagonists of this gay love story never go beyond kissing. At any rate, its runaway success was part of the driver for the Kremlin's crackdown. Other titles that had to be withdrawn from sale include Russian editions of Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation and Olivia Laing's Everybody, books that discuss homosexuality, though hardly in an extremist way. It's not just LGBTQ+-related topics, however loosely defined, that are deemed incendiary. Felix Sandalov, the director of StraightForward – an international project he cofounded to promote uncensored literature about Russia – told me about other taboos. They include comparisons between Stalinism and Nazism, unfavourable mentions of the Russian Orthodox church and, of course, any insufficiently patriotic takes on the current war in Ukraine. Prohibitions keep multiplying. One piece of legislation will criminalise 'propaganda' promoting childfree lifestyles. There are also plans to crack down on what Russian legislators call an 'international Satanism movement'. If that happens, Bulgakov's novel might disappear from the shelves again. The result of Russia's latest assault on free speech is a book industry in turmoil. Everyone is scared, several insiders told me, asking not to be named. The approach taken by the authorities – to keep people guessing what's allowed and what's not – appears to be an efficient intimidation strategy. Nevertheless, working under growing scrutiny, publishers have been devising countermeasures. Sandalov, formerly the editorial director of Individuum (another Moscow-based imprint in which Eksmo recently bought a 51% stake), recalls how some of its authors were registered as 'foreign agents' following the extension, in 2021, of another repressive law. 'Initially we could still publish [these authors] provided we observed the labelling rules,' he says. While doing so, they found a witty way to partially circumvent the obligatory 'produced by a foreign agent' warning by blurring it. Another clever move was their cover of Martha Gellhorn's The Face of War, with its visual evocation of the letter Z, the symbol of Russia's military aggression. The anti-war graffiti it inspired can be found in many cities. With the prospect of criminal persecution looming large, however, fighting the censors is becoming too dangerous. Victoria, a publishing professional with links to the Russian book market, told me independent publishers are dropping any problematic subjects and instead branching out into new areas, such as Asian cultures and art history. She sees this as 'a form of ideological opposition and survival in this totalitarian nightmare'. Expecting the screws to be tightened further, some publishers compile their own lists of titles to be removed from shops. Such self-censorship is no doubt convenient to busy law enforcers. 'In the 2010s,' Victoria says, 'it was widely believed that … the authorities in this country don't read books.' Whether they've since become avid and attentive readers is unclear. Their decision to ban Leslie Kern's Feminist City – a study of urbanism – might be explained by their kneejerk tendency to ascribe LGBTQ+ connotations to the word 'feminism'. As for Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet and Walter Benjamin's One-Way Street, these works could only be blacklisted by someone who didn't understand them at all. But it's not just the state wielding its own apparatus to further restrict freedom of expression. Ordinary readers also do their bit for law and order. Police are sometimes alerted to suspicious books by vigilantes who post offending passages on social media. The existence of informants is not surprising. I dislike a book, I complain about it, it gets banned; thus, my voice has been heard. In a country with no democratic mechanisms left, reporting something objectionable is the only way for an individual to participate in public life. Any community where people feel politically disengaged – as they increasingly do in the UK and across the world – risks descending into the same madness. Censorship always relies on self-censorship, be it in Russia or in the west, where (to give but one example) venues cancel shows by artists protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza. Speaking your mind is, naturally, fraught with more serious consequences in totalitarian states than in those where censorship is mostly limited to economic measures, but the gap is closing. Whatever your government's human rights record, freedom of expression should never be taken for granted. Unlike the fireproof manuscripts in Bulgakov's fiction, real-life books, once banned, can be destroyed for ever. As the repressive campaign continues, pre-emptive self-censorship in Russia is gaining momentum. Last month Eksmo opened an exhibition at the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation – the federal agency that brought the case against the corporation's employees – to celebrate 'heroes past and present', from Soviet secret policemen to those involved in the making of 'the great legend', as one of the books on display refers to the Ukraine war. Published with the support of the ministry of defence, it features Stalin's name on page one. On page seven there is an error: the author got the month of Russia's 2022 invasion wrong. The hagiographers of this war are as inept as those who wage it. Anna Aslanyan is a journalist and translator, and the author of Dancing on Ropes: Translators and the Balance of History Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Guardian
17 hours ago
- The Guardian
Russia has also declared war on literature. Look at what's happening and be warned
'Manuscripts don't burn,' the protagonist of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita is told. This maxim is voiced by Satan, in reference to the Master's destroyed opus. Having restored it, the devil punishes the man who tipped off the police about 'illegal literature' kept in the Master's flat, so as to move there himself. Bulgakov didn't have to make this up. Surrounded by snitches, he managed to survive the Great Terror of the 1930s, as did his books. The Master and Margarita, on which he worked until his death in 1940, was first published uncensored in the USSR in 1973. In the early 1990s, censorship was officially lifted in Russia. For a while, one could publish almost anything, but now literature has again become a target of oppression. Things have become particularly dire since 2022, the year Russia invaded Ukraine and criminalised 'LGBT propaganda' among adults. In 2023 another bill was passed, outlawing the 'international LGBT public movement' as extremist. These laws are now being deployed in Russia's war on its book industry. Earlier this year, Russian police, armed with a list containing 48 titles, raided several bookshops, ordering the staff to remove copies of the books on the list. Administrative proceedings were launched and fines issued. In May, 10 people affiliated with Eksmo, the country's largest publishing corporation, were detained in Moscow. Three of them – Pavel Ivanov, Dmitry Protopopov and Artyom Vakhlyaev – were charged with 'organising activities of an extremist organisation', that is, distributing LGBTQ+-themed books. They remain under house arrest and face up to 12 years in prison. One of the books used as evidence in the case is Pioneer Summer, a bestselling novel by Elena Malisova and Katerina Sylvanova that was published in 2021 by Popcorn Books (a Moscow-based imprint now part-owned by Eksmo). Over the past three years, it has provoked outrage, particularly among Russian politicians, despite being anything but steamy: the teenage protagonists of this gay love story never go beyond kissing. At any rate, its runaway success was part of the driver for the Kremlin's crackdown. Other titles that had to be withdrawn from sale include Russian editions of Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation and Olivia Laing's Everybody, books that discuss homosexuality, though hardly in an extremist way. It's not just LGBTQ+-related topics, however loosely defined, that are deemed incendiary. Felix Sandalov, the director of StraightForward – an international project he cofounded to promote uncensored literature about Russia – told me about other taboos. They include comparisons between Stalinism and Nazism, unfavourable mentions of the Russian Orthodox church and, of course, any insufficiently patriotic takes on the current war in Ukraine. Prohibitions keep multiplying. One piece of legislation will criminalise 'propaganda' promoting childfree lifestyles. There are also plans to crack down on what Russian legislators call an 'international Satanism movement'. If that happens, Bulgakov's novel might disappear from the shelves again. The result of Russia's latest assault on free speech is a book industry in turmoil. Everyone is scared, several insiders told me, asking not to be named. The approach taken by the authorities – to keep people guessing what's allowed and what's not – appears to be an efficient intimidation strategy. Nevertheless, working under growing scrutiny, publishers have been devising countermeasures. Sandalov, formerly the editorial director of Individuum (another Moscow-based imprint in which Eksmo recently bought a 51% stake), recalls how some of its authors were registered as 'foreign agents' following the extension, in 2021, of another repressive law. 'Initially we could still publish [these authors] provided we observed the labelling rules,' he says. While doing so, they found a witty way to partially circumvent the obligatory 'produced by a foreign agent' warning by blurring it. Another clever move was their cover of Martha Gellhorn's The Face of War, with its visual evocation of the letter Z, the symbol of Russia's military aggression. The anti-war graffiti it inspired can be found in many cities. With the prospect of criminal persecution looming large, however, fighting the censors is becoming too dangerous. Victoria, a publishing professional with links to the Russian book market, told me independent publishers are dropping any problematic subjects and instead branching out into new areas, such as Asian cultures and art history. She sees this as 'a form of ideological opposition and survival in this totalitarian nightmare'. Expecting the screws to be tightened further, some publishers compile their own lists of titles to be removed from shops. Such self-censorship is no doubt convenient to busy law enforcers. 'In the 2010s,' Victoria says, 'it was widely believed that … the authorities in this country don't read books.' Whether they've since become avid and attentive readers is unclear. Their decision to ban Leslie Kern's Feminist City – a study of urbanism – might be explained by their kneejerk tendency to ascribe LGBTQ+ connotations to the word 'feminism'. As for Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet and Walter Benjamin's One-Way Street, these works could only be blacklisted by someone who didn't understand them at all. But it's not just the state wielding its own apparatus to further restrict freedom of expression. Ordinary readers also do their bit for law and order. Police are sometimes alerted to suspicious books by vigilantes who post offending passages on social media. The existence of informants is not surprising. I dislike a book, I complain about it, it gets banned; thus, my voice has been heard. In a country with no democratic mechanisms left, reporting something objectionable is the only way for an individual to participate in public life. Any community where people feel politically disengaged – as they increasingly do in the UK and across the world – risks descending into the same madness. Censorship always relies on self-censorship, be it in Russia or in the west, where (to give but one example) venues cancel shows by artists protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza. Speaking your mind is, naturally, fraught with more serious consequences in totalitarian states than in those where censorship is mostly limited to economic measures, but the gap is closing. Whatever your government's human rights record, freedom of expression should never be taken for granted. Unlike the fireproof manuscripts in Bulgakov's fiction, real-life books, once banned, can be destroyed for ever. As the repressive campaign continues, pre-emptive self-censorship in Russia is gaining momentum. Last month Eksmo opened an exhibition at the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation – the federal agency that brought the case against the corporation's employees – to celebrate 'heroes past and present', from Soviet secret policemen to those involved in the making of 'the great legend', as one of the books on display refers to the Ukraine war. Published with the support of the ministry of defence, it features Stalin's name on page one. On page seven there is an error: the author got the month of Russia's 2022 invasion wrong. The hagiographers of this war are as inept as those who wage it. Anna Aslanyan is a journalist and translator, and the author of Dancing on Ropes: Translators and the Balance of History
The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
Heart-stopping moment hero runs in front of train to rescue man who collapsed on track with just a second to spare
THIS is the heart-stopping moment a hero runs in front of a train to rescue a man who collapsed over the tracks. The brave onlooker makes a desperate dash to drag the man to safety a split second before the pair are smashed into. 5 5 5 The man, believed to be Russian, can be seen stumbling towards the active tracks as the bright lights of the passenger train appear in the distance. As the man approaches he suddenly stops before balancing on one leg as the train continues to hurtle towards him. Seconds later, he falls forwards and collapses head first onto the line. It is unclear what made the man fall to the ground with it believed to have been a sweltering 30C in Derbent, Russia, at the time. With his body draped over the tracks a heroic bystander leaps into action and runs directly over the tracks with the train mere feet away. He miraculously manages to grab a hold of the man as he lays motionless on the ground and drag him onto the grass next to the track. The train then rushes on past with the lifesaver keeping a tight grip on the collapsed individual who appears passed out. A search is now underway for the unidentified good samaritan. Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper have even put out a notice saying: "The hero is being sought so that he can be honoured." A similar chilling ordeal unfolded last year as a hero commuter was seen jumping on to railway tracks to rescue a toddler — just 22 seconds before a train thunders past. CCTV captured the three-year-old walking along the platform last month and starting to lower himself over the edge before falling on to the track as a desperate adult runs towards him. Former Big Brother star Mikey Hughes was also saved by strangers when he fell onto the tracks at a Scottish station in 2024. The veteran reality star was at Hyndland station in Glasgow when the scary incident happened. He admits he is "lucky to be alive" as he only suffered a few bruises and no bones were broken. 5 5
