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KHOVANSHCHINA The fanatical Marfa, by contrast, was the charismatic Rosalind Plowright, in variable voice, but presenting this ex-sinner as if she was shaping up for Kundry, her relationship to most of the men on stage mixing the erotic and the repentant in a way that otherwise only Wagner has done. She was almost omnipresent, and seemed the most powerful personality in the whole drama. As directed by David Pountney, Marfa, in the statuesque form of Rosalind Plowright, is the focus of the drama. It is she who draws the various factions of the drama together into a religio-political maelstrom that leads to the assassination of Khovansky by Sophia’s agent, Shaklovity, and the mass suicide by the Communion of Old Believers. Although the role lies low for Plowright, she grows in stature and vocal confidence as the drama reaches its climax, emerging as a Brönnhilde-like redeemer in the final Immolation scene. Rosalind Plowright is appropriately histrionic as Marfa, the Mystic Meg of 17th-century Muscovy. Rosalind Plowright had huge dramatic presence as Marfa, the woman in black drawing together all the strands to personify Mother Russia. |