Theatre

Theater Season Opens in Moscow…

Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center

Marriage and Other Horrors

The opera center named after Galina Vishnevskaya will kick off its new season in October with the opening night of a new opera, Marriage and Other Horrors. This is a fantasy that combines a series of operas on Nikolai Gogol’s works – Sorochinzy Fair and Marriage by M. Musorgsky, Chistmas Eve and May Night by N. Rimsky-Korsakov, Cherevichki by P. Tchaikovsky, and Nose by D. Shostakovich. Gogol always attracted the attention of the greatest Russian composers. Vladimir Mirsoev, the director of this performance, is famous for his theatrical works and original interpretations of Gogol’s stories.

All the singers are also talented dramatic actors. You do not always get to witness such well-trained voices and articulation along with theatrical talent in the opera. Many well-known soloists of the opera center will take part in this performance and, at the same time, for some of Galina Vishnevskaya’s students, this opera is going to be their début.

The Sovremennik Theater

The God of Carnage

The Sovremennik Theater created two notable plays at the end of last season that will be performed this season: The God of Carnage written by French drama playwriter Yasmina Resa and Gaft’s Dream retold by Viktyuk written by Valentin Gaft, one of the leading actors of the theater.

Yasmina Resa’s plays are popular and are staged all over the world. God of Carnage was named the Best Comedy of 2008 in London and received the Laurence Olivier Award. Sovremennik acquired exclusive rights to stage the play in Russia. Yasmina Resa is an outstanding dialogue creator.

The play takes place in today’s Paris. It depicts two married couples who gather to discuss the misbehavior of one of the couple’s child who beat up the child of the other couple and broke his tooth. However, by beginning to discuss the issue that brought them together, they move on to elaborating on a lot more topics than they originally planned. This psychological comedy makes you contemplate on such things as relationships, children’s upbringing, professional work ethics, etc. An excellent acting crew – Olga Drozdova, Sergey Ushkevich, Alyona Babenko and Vladislav Vetrov – the stars of this performance will make you laugh and cry.

Gaft’s Dream retold by Viktyuk

Gaft’s Dream… is quite the opposite genre-wise. This play is dedicated to audiences familiar with Soviet history. This play is Gaft’s experiment in the drama genre although he is a famous poet and epigram writer. The director of the play, Roman Viktyuk identified the genre as “phantasmagoria”, and was the play’s co-author. Alexander Philippenko, a guest actor of the theater whose outstanding talent and wit has added a lot to the success of the play, was also a co-author. Throughout the performance he plays over ten roles – from a drama playwriter Edward Radzinsky to the Communist leader Genady Zuganov.

The play starts as so-called Uncle Kolya (played by Gaft) has a dream about Stalin (also played by Gaft). Stalin comes back to the real world to discuss his deeds. The play is pretty static, with little action; sometimes it even resembles a radio play as the actors spend most of the time discussing the destiny of the Motherland and various related topics.

Viktyuk calls this play “our contemplation of what’s happening nowadays, our pain that we want to share with our audience”. One critic called this play “a farcical understanding of the terror epoch”, which seems to be quite an accurate characteristic. The more you have read or know about “the terror epoch” before watching this play, the more interesting it will be for you. This performance is definitely for someone with a high proficiency in Russian and specific interest in history. And of course it is for someone who is a big fan of the Sovremennik Theater!