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Oct. 21--Bad art that glorifies a despicable regime can be dismissed as propaganda; great art that does so poses a moral dilemma. To discard it would be wasteful, to consume it suspect. What, then, to do about Sergei Prokofiev's stirring score to Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 epic movie "Alexander Nevsky," about a ruthless, Stalin-like leader who led his nation into battle with the invading Teutons?
The New York Philharmonic took a straightforward approach on Thursday: Play the hell out of the music, show the film and let the audience decide. The crowd responded with lockstep ovations that would have gladdened a commissar's heart.
And why not? Nobody in Avery Fisher Hall was stamping and clapping under threat of arrest. It was not the giant figure of Stalin they hailed, but the diminutive conductor Xian Zhang and the apolitical army of musicians that she led. Propaganda eventually loses its bite. The art outlives its message.
Synching a live performance of a soundtrack to the original movie has become a standard technique, usually used for John Williams tributes or clips of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's swashbuckler scores.
This was a different beast. "Nevsky" is virtually a visual adaptation of a symphonic suite. (Most people know the score only from the cantata version, trimmed and shorn of visuals, not from the original, ably restored by William Brohn.) The two Sergeis worked side by side, and at times the director re-edited his footage so as not to distress the composer.
Just as Eisenstein's camera shot the battle scenes from within and below, shoving the viewer into the middle of the brutal hacking and pounding, so Prokofiev thrust music into the heart of the film. The stirring martial passages, the noble melodies of grief for fallen comrades, the galloping violins, tolling chimes and hammer-blows -- every dramatic gesture has a musical impulse as well, which is why the Philharmonic could make such a thrilling night of it.
Given the right conditions, this is a fearless orchestra, which loves nothing more than to make a high-definition din. (And so what if it's in the cause of tyrant worship?) Zhang kept the playing locked to picture and directed the traffic of a couple hundred musicians and choristers with a rare but crucial pairing of intensity and aplomb.
The New York Choral Artists sang the patriotic lyrics with reverent exactitude, and mezzo-soprano Meredith Arwady made her Philharmonic debut in a richly mournful performance of the aria for the battlefield dead. The orchestra had that galvanized, brassy sound it gets when its members are fully charged, and phrasing remained supple even within the confines of the film's sprocket-bound discipline.
All this quality playing is a mixed blessing to those who still feel Stalinism's sting: Performances this good tend to steamroller political reservations, which is of course the goal of propaganda art in the first place.
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC. Prokofiev's complete score to "Alexander Nevsky," performed with the Eisenstein film. Xian Zhang, conductor. Attended Thursday night. Avery Fisher Hall. Repeated tonight and Tuesday. For tickets and information, call 212-875-5656 or go to www.nyphilharmonic.org.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
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