★★★☆☆
Russian epics suit Welsh National Opera, with its full-bodied chorus and orchestra. And there are many passages in Prokofiev’s 1940s adaptation of Tolstoy — particularly towards the end, as Napoleon’s French army is being routed all over the stage, and the glories of Mother Russia are extolled in spine-shaking decibels — when the impact is as awe-inspiring as, well, the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.
The Russian ambassador, under whose “honorary patronage” this new production was mounted, must have been delighted to have had this blatant piece of Soviet wartime propaganda revived by a British company, without a trace of irony, at this particular moment. Especially as David Pountney’s staging, although sung in a sometimes clunky English translation, could have come straight from the
