A Film by Elisabeth Kapnist
NVC Arts 50 51865 211525 (58 minutes)
One might have thought that Chaliapin would be a fascinating subject for a film biography, as there is much source material to choose from; his memoirs, dictated to his close friend Maxim Gorky, an extensive discography, some choice film footage and many colourful reminiscences from the likes of Rachmaninov, an apologist for Chaliapin’s backstage brawling, Rosa Ponselle and Geraldine Farrar on the art of upstaging, Massenet on the hysterics attending the play-through of Don Quichotte, and much, much more.
Nothing so vivid here, alas. Instead, an impressionist travelogue, incorporating the memoirs as a voice-over, wafts us through a vaguely chronological account of Chaliapin’s career up to the Russian Revolution, after that, it deals with his international celebrity in the west perfunctorily. There is a scattergun appliqué of images, footage and music of hit-and-miss relevance. Threaded throughout are interviews with Sergei Leiferkus, bass Alexei Mochalov, the director Boris Pokrovsky, theatre writer Anatoly Smeliansky, violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov and Marina Freddi, one of Chaliapin’s daughters. Only the last seems at ease on camera, and delivers some touching reminiscences. The others seem lost. Leiferkus is introduced singing the first of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death (uncredited), segued by a discourse on Chaliapin’s way with performing folk music. Then, in a segment on Stanislavsky and Chaliapin’s immersion in theatre, he dries embarrassingly, telling a none too relevant anecdote about Chaliapin leaving the theatre in his Mephisto costume and scaring a cabby – surely a retake was necessary. Pokrovsky and Smeliansky offer platitudes about our hero’s Russian-ness, and dramatic truth, nothing specific enough is said. Mochalov give a voice production lesson to a student, yet doesn’t discuss Chaliapin’s voice production, legendary breath control and unusual (for a Russian bass) timbre, being more baritonal than the basso profondo of the choir tradition – it is fleetingly mentioned in passing, almost as an aside.
The chronology comes adrift after a segment on Chaliapin clashing with Toscanini at Mefistofele rehearsals (La Scala 1901), implying that he went straight to a new triumph in Don Quichotte – which was 1910: Massenet‘s name is never mentioned. We do get to see enticing snippets of the film he made with Pabst in 1933. This is followed by Diaghilev’s production of Boris Godunov (1908), where it is explained how successful the Ballet Russes were with the Polovtsian Dances. Funny – I’d always thought they were from Prince Igor – maybe Diaghilev put them into Boris to liven it up. There is no mention that Boris was catapulted into the international repertoire by this benchmark event. Chaliapin’s reasons for leaving Russia in the revolution are unclear. This film won a prize somewhere for best documentary. Go figure! There is a two column blurb on the inside DVD jacket, written by John Steane, which brings the subject to instant life and saves wasting an hour.
[first published in OPERA magazine]
JULIAN GRANT 2009