The West has been known for some time for its inane opera productions. The trick is to ignore called-for locales and stated stage directions in every conceivable and inconceivable way, and thus keep mindless or ignorant audiences awestruck, while getting egomaniacal directors hailed as geniuses. Until recently the East tended to lag behind, sticking to conventional mountings that, though often pedestrian, made sense; now westward-mobile, its productions, instead of dragging their feet, are proudly putting their foot in it with the west of them.

The Kirov Opera of the Mariinsky Theatre--an awkward moniker combining the company?s imperial and communist names--and its artistic director and chief conductor Valery Gergiev, brought over six productions from St. Petersburg, a major logistic, if not necessarily artistic, achievement. One of them, a mere concert version of The Demon by Anton Rubinstein, the one sporadic...

 

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