Name: Dead Souls
Start: 2022-07-12T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2022-07-12T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Mariinsky Theatre

Organization

Direzione d'orchestra

Valery Gergiev

Regia

Vasily Barkhatov

Scenografia

Zinovy Margolin

Costumi

Maria Danilova

Luci

Damir Ismagilov

Yegor Kartashov

Musical Preparation

Marina Mishuk

Direzione del coro

Konstantin Rylov

Cantante

Baritono

Vladimir Moroz

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov

Tenore

Sergei Semishkur

Nozdrev

Mezzosoprano

Elena Vitman

Korobotchkina

Basso

Oleg Sychov

Mikhail Semenovitch Sobakevitch

Svetlana Volkova

Pliushkin

Andrei Ilyushnikov

Manilov

Soprano

Zhanna Dombrovskaya

Lisanka

Andrei Zorin

Selifan

Mariinsky Theatre

Others

The Mariinsky Chorus

Orchestra

Orchester des Mariinski-Theaters

russo

Dead Souls -  (Anime morte)

San Pietroburgo

Russia

Dead Souls Shchedrin

Public

Anime morte

inglese

Approvato

Accordionist

Strumento

Archlutenist

Baroque Flutist

Baroque Oboist

Baroque Trumpetist

Bassist

Bassoonist

Cellist

Clarinetist

Contrabassist

Cornettist

Guitarist

Harper

Harpsichordist

Hornist

Lutenist

Mandoline Player

Musette de cour Player

Oboist

Organist

Percussionist

Pianista

Recorder Player

Saxophonist

Suonatore di flauto

Tenor Violinist

Timpani

Trombonist

Trumpeter

Tuba Player

Vibraphonist

Viola Pomposa Player

Viola da Gambist

Viola d’amore Player

Violinista

Violino Piccolo Player

Violista

Altro

Ballando

Chefdirigent Musiktheater

Chorus Director

Composizione

Coreografia

Coro

Docente di canto

Drammaturgia

Emittente radiotelevisiva

Extra

Illustrator

Insegnante

Libretto

Maestro ripassatore

Orchestra Operations

Parrucco

Photographer

Poet

Produzione esecutiva

Recitazione

Stage Manager

Suono

Traduzione

Trucco

Video

Wig & Makeup Designer

Writer

Writing and performance

Contralto

Basso-baritono

Controtenore

Alto

Continuo

Mimi

Narrazione

Voce bianca

“The idea of the composer was aimed at producing a vocal rethinking of Gogol’s prose,” Rodion Shchedrin wrote in an explanatory note to the opera Dead Souls. With unusual sensitivity the composer responded to everything that can be heard in Gogol’s great poem, and he laid this bare in the voluminous musical images, first and foremost the vocal parts. With Gogol, Selifan the coachman is given a “subtle and melodious voice” – in the opera this is a high tenor, moreover singing in the folk style. The sweet tenor bel canto comes with Manilov, whose voice Gogol described as “touchingly tender” (Lizanka Manilova, the female double of her husband, repeats him in the tones of a lyrical coloratura soprano). On reading a description of the gambler and layabout Nozdryov as a “man of great height and a somewhat narrow face”, and also blond, and taking into account the character’s fiery temperament, Shchedrin decided to make him, too, a tenor – a dramatic one. Nozdryov’s son-in-law Mizhuyev appears with Gogol as having a “lazy and lethargic” voice – in the opera this role is awarded to a low bass, in essence a voice that is not too flexible; when the hero falls into a drunken dream, his voice also reaches the lower depths of the range. Sobakevich, too, sings as a bass: only the mighty bogatyr voice with a broad range is suitable for a man who wears boots “of such a gigantic size that legs to match could hardly be found anywhere”. The club-headed widow Korobochka is a mezzo, as is Plyushkin, who is performed by a woman in men’s clothing. When Plyushkin first starts to sing, the audience shudders: “Oh, a woman” – exactly repeating the thought of Chichikov, taken up by Gogol, when he meets the degraded miser: “Oh, woman” (and a second later “Oh, no”). Moreover, the role of the old hoarder is markedly anti-vocal, as the author described his voice as “hoarse”.

Nabokov called Dead Souls a grandiose dream through which an idea of Russia is drawn – the “lyrical note” of Gogol’s poem. Thus, too, Shchedrin’s opera is structured. Its lyrical notes are focussed in the “road” scenes, which with their refrain are interwoven with caricature episodes. The composer has contrasted the living with the dead; he has rendered faces from among the people alive – a grieving soldier’s wife, and a bearded peasant at the roadside. In these scenes the singing is peasant-like rather than operatic; the author was assisted by aural experiences from his childhood, spent on the banks of the River Oka, where the composer-to-be heard shepherds, mourners and drunken songs. Gogol referred to a folk song by name – The Snows Are Not White; Shchedrin composed a refrain to these words, and it sounds like archaic Russian folklore, moreover a musical and theoretical analysis here highlights the links with composition techniques of the 20th century. Recurring many times throughout the opera, it is also folk singing that brings it to its conclusion. “Do not weep, do not weep, do not be sad” – the female voices sing, though the listener does indeed wish to cry, repeating after Pushkin: “My God, how sad our Russia is!”

Being, it would seem, fleeting intermedia links, the “road” scenes in the opera carry the main burden of the drama and the meaning. These were first of all dispensed with by Zinovy Margolin, designer of the production, who conceived a key visual symbol for Dead Souls in 2011 – two immense and slowly-turning wheels. Stage director Vasily Barkhatov narrates the story of the luckless affair of Chichikov, not tying it down to any specific era: the audience will recognise realities of the age of serfdom and of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. In 2012 the dynamic, vivid, witty and bitter production by Barkhatov and Margolin was nominated for the Golden Mask award in a whole seven categories, and in that of “Best work by a designer in musical theatre” it won Russia’s most prestigious theatre prize. Khristina Batyushina

English

Anime morte by Shchedrin, mar 12 lug 2022, Da (2022/2022), Diretto da Vasily Barkhatov,, Direttore d'orchestra Valery Gergiev, Mariinsky Theatre, San Pietroburgo, Russia

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