Wexford: The Gambler

National Opera House (O'Reilly Theatre) Wexford 24/10/25

Orchestra and Chorus of Wexford Opera; Valentin Uryupin (conductor); Taras Prysiazhniuk (tenor); Sophie Gordeladze (soprano); Alexei Botnarciuc (bass); Hilary Ginther (mezzo-soprano); Gavan Ring (tenor); Rory Musgrave (baritone); Clarry Bartha (soprano); Seán Tester (tenor); Ross Cumming (baritone); Wonsick Oh (bass); Olga Conway (actor)

Prokofiev’s 1917 opera after Dostoevsky’s 1866 novella ‘The Gambler’ is the subject of this second report from this year’s Wexford Festival, the performance of the night of 24th October in the larger O’Reilly Theatre at the National Opera House. Macedonian director Ivan Popovsky directed; design was by award-winning Russian, Maria Tregubova. Lighting was by Paolo Bonapace. The Orchestra and Chorus of Wexford Opera were conducted by Russian-born (Berlin-based) Valentin Uryupin. Dancers from the Wexford School of Ballet & Performing Arts were choreographed by Luisa Baldinetti.

The music is spiky 26-year old Prokofiev and it matches the grim tale of lives blighted by addiction to the roulette wheel in the fictitious German spa town of Roulettenburg, mostly Russians indulging their vice far from home’s prying eyes. Alexei (Ukrainian tenor Taras Prysiazhniuk) arrives at the house of The General (Romanian bass Alexei Botnarciuc) to take up the post of tutor. He is already in love with the General's daughter, Polina (Georgian soprano Sophie Gordeladze), who is already involved with The Marquis (Irish tenor Dr Gavan Ring). The Marquis is a usurer and The General is ruinously in his debt, due to his losses at the table. Polina has entrusted Alexei with her jewellery to pawn, ostensibly to clear her father’s debt, but he has lost the lot at the roulette table. On a whim, she asks him to prove his protestations of love by doing her bidding (for once) and insulting a passing Baroness (Wexford native actor and drama coach Olga Conway, founder of Discovering Drama). Unsurprisingly, the Baron (Korean bass baritone Wonsick Oh) takes grave exception to this. The General’s gold-digging mistress Blanche (American mezzo Hilary Ginther) doesn’t know yet that he is broke and starts asking awkward questions. He sacks Alexei, who then announces he will challenge the Baron to a duel. Polina’s Grandma (Swedish soprano Clarry Bartha), from whom The General stands to inherit a debt-cancelling fortune, is supposedly gravely ill. English gambler Mr Astley (Irish baritone and very busy WFO regular Rory Musgrave – Don Pedro in ‘The Rose of Castile earlier that day, Bottom in ‘The Little Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and Ulysses in ‘Deidamia’ last year, Dulcamara in the previous year’s ‘Elixir of Love’) points out that the General’s plans to marry Blanche are dependent on the inheritance. So, of course, she makes a miraculous recovery, shows up and starts frittering away a chunk of her fortune at the roulette table, out of curiosity. The General panics, but she leaves when she has blown the finds she had with her . Blanche dumps him in favour of wealthy catch Prince Nilsky (Irish tenor Seán Tester – Libenskof in ‘Il viaggio a Reims’ last year). Polina confesses to Alexei that she too is in debt to The Marquis. This is his “knight in shining armour” moment. He returns to the table, has a phenomenal winning streak, and breaks the bank. But when he returns to her with his winnings and offers to cancel her debt, she feels cheapened and is repulsed by him. He is left alone, ironically musing over his good fortune.

Early arrivals to their seats will have seen two large white panels bearing the words “Hot” and “sin” in black script. Ballet dancers in black with long poster brushes completed the words “Hotel” and “Casino”. For much of the opera, apart from black and (mostly) white props, that was the minimalist monochrome set. The costumes, too, clung to this monochrome symbolism. Those characters enslaved to gambling, but putting on a façade that denied their financial precarity, were clad in all-white, including top hats. Those with any vestige of innocence or unpretensiousness wore some black. Only Granma Babulenka wore all-black, unsullied but vulnerable. At first, I found the whole monochrome conceit uninspiring and dull. When the demon of gambling addiction assumed material form as a black amorphous mass that threatened to engulf Babulenka, I re-evaluated. When she emerged from the casino after losing 100,000 francs, the demon was attached like a black tarpaulin train to her back gown. But she shrugged it off and departed, relatively unscathed. I liked that, and the feisty characterisation, a lot. Refreshingly dismissive of the fakery, she even points out to her son that he is not even a real general. The rest of the monochrome thing, not so much. Only in Act 4 was there some relief. The large panels rotated to reveal real-life colours for the scene in Alexei’s bedroom where Polina confesses her own financial worries. Alexei’s manic gambling room scene was where the colour red appeared for the first time. Ballerinas in black and red rotated like the numbers on the roulette wheel. That was excellent, serving the plot, matching the heightened mood in the music and the libretto. Other symbolic design elements, like rolling black spheres (perhaps representing financial burdens of differing enormity?), or arch-shaped sub-panels that detached to become a table and an incline, revealing doorways with billowing black silken curtains hinting at the iniquity behind, were all probably “cleverly” surreal and evocative of the insincerity of the characters, but did not impress. Perhaps I’m just not “clever” enough? On the upside, there were quite a few flashes of visual humour, like the preposterously long sheets of paper purporting to be ‘telegrams’ updating The General on Babulenka’s health.

I knew the music would be spiky Prokofiev, but actually it was immensely absorbing and satisfying. Mercurial changes in metre and tempo to match the speech rhythms of the Russian language anticipated some of the sound-world of Shostakovich’s ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’ nearly two decades in the future, though with no real arias as such. There was excellent tautness and precision in the orchestral playing shaped by Valentin Uryupin’s direction, delivering a secure matrix for some really fine vocal performances. I couldn’t fault any of them, or indeed the dramatic characterisations. Though I was quite tired and much of the visuals were featureless, my attention was held by the aural elements and the pacy narrative, in which I felt fully invested.

In conclusion, then? A sizeable fraction of the production suffered from under-designed visual stimulation and over-designed symbolism, in a way that attacked the notion of opera as spectacle. But, looking past that, the music and libretto were enough to carry a gem. And, undeniably, the visual stimulation of the last Act, especially the manic scene in the casino, was all the more heightened by contrast, shining a revelatory light on the nature of addiction. Not without the reservations of a fairly conservative (with a small ‘c’) opera-goer, I can give it the thumbs-up.

photo credit: Padraig Grant

https://www.wexfordopera.com/programme/festival-programme/the-gambler