Tri Sestri (Three Sisters)
Photos of the opera, from Wiener Staatsoper
Tri Sestri (Three Sisters)
· An opera written by Claus H. Henneberg and Peter Eötvös, based on the original drama by Anton Chekhov
· March 16th, 2016
· Vienna States Opera House
I would describe the opera Tri Sestri as representational, because throughout the whole play the actors did not have any interaction with the audience. For example, most of the time when the actors were talking with each other (through singing), they were facing each other and only interact with each other, acting like the audience do not exist, and the world in the play is their entire world. Throughout the play, they didn’t mention the audience nor make eye contacts with the audience; the actors seemed to be so engaged in the play that they acted like they live in the era when the stories happened.
I think the central conflict of Tri Sestri is the contradiction of the three sisters’ and their brother’s hope and longing of a brighter future full of love and happiness, and the cruel reality that forces them to accept their gloomy destiny. This can be derived by the content of the opera, which entails three sequences, telling the stories of Irina (one of the sisters), Andrei (the brother of the three sisters) and Masha (one of the sisters), respectively. The stories take place in a small Russian village where life is monotonous and boring, and the only thing that excites the villagers is the arrival of the armies. In the first sequence, Irina, one of the sisters, longed for true love and a change of her meaningless life in the village and move to the city Moscow. She has two suiters, Tuzenbach and Solyony, who are both soldiers. Irina’s sisters tried to persuade her to marry Tuzenbach, but she was hesitant, because she does not really love him. This is shown in the play when she hold Tuzenbach’s hands for a while, but then soon let go and turned around. She was also afraid of Solyony, because Solyony seems to be a little bit extreme. When Solyony convinced his love to Irina, he kneeled in front of Irina and said “I cannot force you to love me. But I will not tolerate any successful rivals! I swear by everything that I hold dear, I shall kill any rival!” Later, when Irina made her compromise and decided to marry Tuzenbach, hoping to have a change for a better life, saying “The Baron and I are getting married! We’re going away tomorrow, and the next day out new life will begin.” Immediately after, she found out that Tuzenbach was killed by Solyony in a quarrel, where Solyony said “My hands smell like a corpse”. Therefore, her dream of both true love and a change of a better life are both destroyed. Her good hope of the future is contradicted by the actual events happened at the time. In the second sequence, the three sisters’ brother, Andrei, was in love with his wife at first, and was cheerful and clever, dreamed of a future full of promise and hope. However, the reality is that his wife, Natasha, is not a kind-hearted woman. This can be seen in the play when Anfissa, the servant working for the family for more than thirty years, was forced to leave by Natasha. Anfissa was sitting on a chair resting, and when Natasha saw that, Natasha become very angry, and said “How dare you sit in my presence! Be off with you at once!” and angrily pushed the chair hardly so that Anfissa fell on the floor. Natasha is also not a loyal wife- everyone except her husband knows that she has a lover, Protopopov. There are two scenes repeated in this sequence, when Natasha left in a beautiful blue night coat to meet Protopopov, saying “ Protopopov? Hee, hee. Tell him: ‘I will be right back!’”. In the end, Andrei found out his wife Natasha’s vulgarness and lost his love in his wife. Andrei finally fled away with the Doctor. And the last sequence tells the story of Masha (one of the sisters). Masha is a lady full of characters - she talks in a dramatic way where her voice goes up and down a lot, and she likes to smoke cigarette and whistle. She is married with Kulygin, but she is unhappy about her marriage and despise him. When the lieutenant Vershinin visited the family, Masha and Vershinin fell in love with each other. However, both of them are married, and Masha’s love to Vershinin is vehemently disapproved by her sister Olga. Soon Vershinin left because his wife “has taken poison again”, and he and Masha may not see each other anymore, which makes Masha fall into deep sorrow. I think that through the content of the story describe above, we can see that at first the characters are hopeful and strive for love and meaningful life, however, the reality is cruel. Their hope vanished, and in the end they all had to accept their destiny. And it is this contradiction of the hopes of a bright future and the cruelty of the reality presented in the stories that gives the central conflict of the opera.
The final moments of the play is the end of the third sequence, which is the end of the story of Masha, the farewell scene of Masha and Vershinin. In this scene, Masha seems to be a little angry, and very sad. From her gestures, she wiped her eyes and put her hand over her forehead several times, which symbolizes her sadness and dizziness in her head. At first, when Vershinin was saying goodbye to the sisiters, Masha did not show up. When Olga went to go and look for Masha, Vershinin seemed to be in a hurry. He said “Everything comes to an end, and so we must part.” Then he kept looking at the clock. Finally, Masha showed up. Vershinin embraced Masha; Instead of letting go, Masha clinged to Vershinin passionately, and the two of them exchange a long kiss. At the same time, Masha’s husband, Kulygin appeared behind them with flowers. Vershinin tried to break away from Masha, and said, “...let me go... it’s time... let go...”. But Masha didn’t loosen her arms. Finally, Masha let go, and seemed to be heart broken, putting her hands over her heart. Vershinin left quickly. And on the stage, there is only Masha and Kulygin left. Masha was standing at the front, and Kulygin was standing at the back, holding flowers, saying, “My wonderful Masha, my dear wife…” And this is the end of the show. From this we can see that the central conflict is not resolved in the opera, because in the end, Masha didn’t get the change and true love that she wanted; instead, she has to accept what her life was like, dull, meaningless, and keep living with the husband who she doesn’t love. Tri Sestri is a tragedy where the conflict, the cruel reality, takes over the hopes of the three sisters’ family.
The Vienna State Opera House would produce this opera, because Tri Sestri is one of the most famous show in the world, and one of the best known ones from Anton Chekhov. This adaptation version written by Claus H. Henneberg and Peter Eötvös, though, condensed the original five act play into three sequences, and added a time element. The original play was shown in a “time linear” order, where things happened chronically; however, this opera shown on stage is in a curvier and accelerating time order. For example, the first sequence takes up the first half of the opera, but only depicts the story that happened in several weeks - from Tuzenbach and Solyony’s visit to Tuzenbach’s death during the visit. The second sequence and third sequence are much shorter, as they are both in the second half (after the 15 minutes break) of the opera. However, the time ranges they depict are much longer. For Andrei, it was a few years, because at first Natasha only had a son, but later it was shown that she had a daughter as well. For Masha, it was even longer. As mentioned in the dialogue, the first time Vershinin visited the three sisters was when they were still little girls and when their father was still alive. And now Vershinin is visiting them when Masha’s already married. Also, from sequence to sequence, there is no specific chronical orders. For example, in the first sequence, Tuzenbach was dead. But he appeared again in the second sequence. This element of the abstraction of time is important because it makes the new version of the play (this opera) more important of our time. As in a review of the opera written by Francis Hüsers, the opera gives a “critical analysis of time”, which makes it “committed to our time”. He states that “at the same time by using Cheklov’s material takes up the thread of the past and looks back at the high, early and pre-modern eras…. Draw the eye inevitably back to the question of the future.” The speeding of the time in the opera can be interpreted as the rapid pace and speed brought by industrialization and mechanization. I think the fact that the opera is able to link the older material to the time we are living now, and give a deeper perception of our time and history, is another important reason why it is shown in a prestigious opera house as well.
I think that as stated above, it is a tragedy that talks about the cruelty that the reality can be. Although the characters in the play are hopeful at first, they are powerless compared with their destiny. Disappointed so many times, they just gave up and accept the dullness, sadness and suffering of their lives. However, I also feel like the play actually still gives the audience a sense of “hope” of the future and that the three sisters and their brother are not defeated yet. Because at the beginning of the show, in the prologue portion, the three sisters are sitting on swings, and singing out their thoughts, “ …And out suffering will be transformed into joy for all those who come after us… They are leaving us…”, “[Olga] All that remains is memories and for us there’ll be a new live”,”[Masha] And we are left completely alone and life will start anew and out live”. The singing words combined with the curvy time order of the opera, makes it seems like the prologue is an independent part with no specific time that does not fit into the time of any of the sequences. Therefore, it could be interpreted as that in the end, when the three sisters’ hope were destroyed by the reality, they didn’t give up; instead, for them it is another beginning to keep hoping for a better future full of meanings and love. Another thing that I think the opera wants to communicate to the audience is the abstraction view of time, as analyzed in the paragraph above.
I think what appealed me the most about the production is to observe the difference between a normal play and an opera. For a normal play, actors act out events happened in life or some legends, where they still talk and act like how people would in real life. Also, there can be music involved in normal plays, but music is not the most important element in a normal play. However, for an opera, all the dialogues and emotions of the characters are sung by the actors through the whole play. This is amazing, as I feel like it increase the aesthetic level of the show, and increase the difficulty. Also, I saw an orchestra lead by conductor Peter Eötvös right in front of the stage in the orchestra pit, forming a circle, playing the music for the show. They are surrounded by the audience and they are seen while playing the music. There is also another orchestra on the back of the stage, which was only shown at the end of the third sequence, which provides background for the opera. I feel like it must requires a lot of work and practice to produce an opera, because throughout the whole play, the music played by the orchestra has to match with the singing by the actors. This is my first time watching an opera, and I think it is amazing how music has a core role in it.
