Eclipse of power

摘要

Among the astronomical phenomena that spur composers to creativity, total solar eclipses figure rarely. A great exception is the one that inspired the nineteenth-century opera Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin. Borodin, a composer, surgeon and research chemist, based the work on a twelfth-century epic poem about Russia's foundation, The Lay of the Host of Igor, which features a momentous eclipse. Now, for the first time in nearly a century, Prince Igor is being performed at New York's Metropolitan Opera, with star bass Ildar Abdrazakov in the title role. The opera had a convoluted genesis. After working on it intermittently for 18 years, Borodin died in 1887, leaving it unfinished; Russian composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov then provided most of the orchestrations. The Met's new production, a joint venture with Amsterdam's De Nederlandse Opera, reconceives the work, making use of decades of musicological research. Director Dmitri Tcherniakov and conductor Gianandrea Noseda have jettisoned much of the Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov material, incorporated newly found pieces by Borodin himself, and rearranged some scenes after referring to Borodin's notes.