First appearing on the stage of London's Drury Lane Theater in 1989, the musical about love and self-sacrifice with the spectacular title "Miss Saigon" has been on the stage of the best theaters in the world for more than thirty years. The authors were inspired to create it by G. Puccini's masterpiece - the opera Madama Butterfly, the idea and even the plot of which are refracted in the musical through the meat grinder of the Vietnam War. The main characters are an American soldier and a Vietnamese girl who sacrifices her life for the happiness of her child, just as the heroine of the famous opera did at the beginning of the century. And it was about love, and not about the war in Vietnam, as the author of the libretto Alain Boublil testified, that the creators wanted to tell in their musical. At the same time, an important place in the work is occupied by a motive that accurately conveys the modern worldview: a tragic clash of different cultures, religions, customs, which has grown into a large-scale and senseless bloodshed.
The impetus for the development of such an acute topic was a poignant picture in the Paris weekly Paris Match, depicting a Vietnamese woman who was seeing off her little daughter in the United States. Schoenberg was struck by the pain and despair that gripped the woman, it was obvious that they were parting forever. The strength of maternal feelings and the bitterness of loss, the illusory hope and desire for love are reflected in the original music of the composer. And the images created on stage by the first performers of the main roles of the musical brought them honorary awards: Laurence Olivier and Tony Awards. Filipino Lea Salonga, who played the Vietnamese dancer Miss Saigon and is the voice of the Disney princesses Mulan and Jasmine today, became the youngest (at the time of the premiere she was eighteen years old) performer to receive these awards.
Continuing the line of acquaintance of the Russian audience with the most striking works in the musical genre, the Musical Comedy Theater became interested in the proposal of Cornelius Baltus , for whom the work on "Miss Saigon" was the third production on the stage of the St. Petersburg theater. After the refined and sophisticated "Hollywood Diva", which brought the Russian theatrical "Oscar" to the Theater of Musical Comedy - the National Award "Golden Mask", the sharp oriental musical "Miss Saigon" promises to be a real discovery for all fans of the genre.
Especially in order to convey the national flavor, during the multi-stage castings, the strongest cast of artists was assembled, many of which appeared before the St. Petersburg audience for the first time. Among them are young performers of the main female role, for whom the work in the musical "Miss Saigon" became a debut on the professional stage.
unique design for the Russian version of the musical was created by Japanese artist Yoko Seama . Combining elements of the traditional art of origami with the latest technologies of the 21st century, the artist proposed to make part of the stage design elements from elastic bands. Other stage objects are presented in the national Vietnamese style using wicker structures.
Particular attention in the production is given to the costumes, the sketches of which were created by the famous artist Kentaur (Hungary), the author of the visual solution for the musical "Dance of the Vampires". Working at the intersection of national traditions, he combined the uniform lines of American troops and civilian silhouettes with the traditional Vietnamese costume, simultaneously showing both the incongruous contradiction of the two cultures and their mutual penetration.
The Musical Supervisor of the Musical Comedy Theatre, music director and conductor Alexei Nefyodov . Especially for the performance, unique flutes were brought to St. Petersburg, which recreate the unique atmosphere of the country in which the action takes place. And this is not all the surprises that await the audience in the new performance.
