The portrait of the roulette wheel
Sergei Prokofiev’s operatic prediction on the XX century art
This essay was written for Lithuanian National Opera Season Book 2019–20 and was published in July 2019 in Lithuanian language.
The story says that after the world premiere of “Gambler” in Brussels a French critic in his review wondered, why such a minor topic could capture the mind of both these geniuses — novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky and composer Sergei Prokofiev. Even if he admitted the mastery of the composer, he couldn’t simply understand what was the point to describe the emotional and psychological degradation of Russians on a European vacation and to put the gambling addiction in the spotlight.
A decade after WWI, there was still an understanding of an opera as a great and massive art with appropriate topics. But since art was always meant to be reflective, the new waves — modernism, impressionism, and post-romanticism were about to cover the opera world. And the genius of “Gambler” was that being written before the war, it has already predicted upcoming changes in composing, subject and dramatic approach.
Prokofiev himself mentioned that being 18 years old he was obsessed with the story of “Gambler”. He found it the most interesting and liveliest of all Dostoevsky’s novels. This story might be so convincing because the novel “The Gambler” treated a subject Dostoevsky himself was very familiar with.
“And I believed in my system … within a quarter of an hour I won 600 francs. This whetted my appetite. Suddenly I started to lose, couldn’t control myself and lost everything. After that I … took my last money, and went to play … I was carried away by this unusual good fortune and I risked all 35 napoleons and lost them all. I had 6 napoleons d’or left to pay the landlady and for the journey. In Geneva I pawned my watch,” the writer reported to his brother.
“The Gambler” itself became a part of the book, which was used to pay off Dostoevsky’s debt.
Composer, in contrast, had no real practice in gambling, but he was obviously very passionate about it. So he had eventually decided on this story as an operatic subject in 1914.
“To portray the roulette wheel, the crowd and the excitement of gambling seemed to me extremely fascinating,” he explained.
All those worthless points were always an important part of authentic Russian dramatism. In contrast between the immorality and the most valuable things — love, belief, and honesty — the greatest Russian dramas were born.
And Prokofiev wasn’t the first nor would he be the last to write about it. Tchaikovsky’s “Queens of Spades”(1890), based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin was a great success and showed how enormously powerful and fierce the struggle between base passions and love could be. So, many composers followed his path in the XX century.
Gambling was mentioned in “Les Contes D’Hoffmann”, “La Belle Helene”, “Candide”, “Histoire Du Soldat”, “The Rake’s Progress”, “The Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County”, “Les Mamelles de Tiresias”, “McTeague”, “Paganini”, “The Gamblers”, and many other operas of the XX century.
But before gambling firmly entrenched in the human mind as a mark of the vices of a new world, Prokofiev took his challenge to embody a realist masterwork from the XIX century in the opera.
The story takes place in 1865 in the imaginary city of Roulettenburg, a mineral water resort in Europe. And, as it becomes clear from the name of the city, people are not really bathing in there. Alexey — the main character — travels with the family of a retired Russian General as the teacher of his children. The general lost in the roulette and was forced to borrow money. His only salvation is the inheritance of the dying Babulenka, who is not going to die, becomes mad on general and later also lost all her money. Now General thinks about the marriage of his daughter and the rich man, to which he owes money, but Alexey, who is in love with Polina, hopes to save her, by winning the jackpot at roulette.
Although the plot gives a small chance for a successful resolution of the entire story, as it would be in an opera from the Romantic period, there’s something wrong with the characters from the very beginning.
We don’t have a gentle and fair lady, as was Liza in “Queen of Spades”, Polina is absolutely different. She is miserable, but also cruel. She is playing with Alexey’s hopes. It might be her weakness, but also, this very character will get the most interesting development in this opera.
On the contrary, Alexey will only degrade. In the beginning, he fights for his love but sometimes fights against her. But later, getting deeper into the world of gambling, he is forced to deal with the temporary and the eternal. And once his love gives him a reason to rush into the abyss of temporary pleasures, he cannot already return.
Just to mention, Lithuanian tenor Kristian Benedikt in our interview for American Operawire noted, that he saw the inner struggle of Samson in exactly the same way — the temporary vs. the eternal. But as we can see, a bible plot and catharsis in “Samson and Dalila” made this issue more accessible for the audience, than straight-forward realism of “Gambler”.
The entire plot issues, as well as incomprehensible characters, required a very precise approach to the narrative and text. Prokofiev wrote the libretto in 3 acts himself, but later, when the piano score was also finished, Boris Demchinsky, the writer and friend of the composer, significantly improved the roulette scene and advised to split the 3rd act, so the final version of the libretto consisted of 4 acts.
For the opera of his second (innovative) line of composing, Prokofiev used a sprinter phasing — each phrase consisted of only 8 beats, which was extremely short. Except for some phrases of Alexey consisted of 16 beats, which is also not long at all. Wagner, for example, could have phrases up to 130 beats long.
This cut and tense dynamic of action gave a mathematical efficiency to every scene, made them less realistic and truly disturbing. Scenes in this piece are also very short — mostly up to 3 minutes. All this deprives the audience of a sense of stability and safety.
Composer almost never practiced any developed operatic formes as arias and ensembles in this piece, using mostly the melodic recitative. And yet the expressiveness of his musical speech was extremely deep.
“The whole opera is written in a declamatory style. At the same time, I try my best not to bother the singers with complex combinations in order to give them an opportunity to focus more on the dramatic side of the opera. For the same reason, the instrumentation will be transparent,” composer explained in his interview in 1916.
Instead of a chorus in the last act, Prokofiev added many individual supporting voices, which brought true massiveness and tightness to the scene. Preparing us a few minutes later to stay in disturbing silence for the last dialog between main characters.
The plot is leading us to not actually the end of the story, which is if not open, then at least uncertain, but to some conclusions. And they are also very Russian. “Nothing can harm Russians, but Russians themselves”. And it’s quite true in both historical and personal perspectives. No matter how hard the life and circumstances of Polina were and will be, standing for herself she will definitely save more of hers than once good Alexey who lost not in roulette, but in his life decisions, so he lost everything.
In February of 1917, when rehearsals were in a full swing, the revolution in Russia has begun. “Nothing can harm Russians, but Russians themselves.” Again. Fits perfectly. Prokofiev left the country. He would get the score back only during his tour in 1927. The score would be remade, libretto would be translated into French, and in 1929 “Le Joueur” would be premiered in Brussels.
“Родные вороны проворонили премьеру*,” the composer would sadly notice.
The original version of the opera was finally staged in 2001 at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, conducted by maestro Rozhdestvensky.
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*untranslatable pun means that his native land missed the premiere.
