Name: The Stone Guest
Start: 2016-10-25T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2017-06-25T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Bolshoi Theatre

Organization

Singer

Tenor

Fyodor Ataskevich

Don Juan

Dmitrij Golovnin

Bass

Pyotr Migunov

Leporello

Soprano

Ekaterina Scherbachenko

Doña Anna

Baritone

Nikolay Kazansky

Don Carlos

Alexander Miminoshvili

Mezzo-soprano

Oksana Volkova

Laura

Yekaterina Sergeyeva

Vyacheslav Pochapsky

Monk

Pavel Valuzhin

1. Guest

Goderdzi Janelidze

2. Guest

Valery Gilmanov

Statue of the Commander

Alexander Naumenko

Conductor

Anton Grishanin

Stage director

Dmitry Belyanushkin

Set designer

Victor Shilkrot

Costume designer

Irena Belousova

Video designer

Dmitri Martynov

Lighting designer

Evgeny Vinogradov

Bolshoi Theatre

The Stone Guest

Moscow

Russia

Beethoven Hall

Approved

On March 11, 2016, the premiere of Alexander Dargomyzhsky's opera "The Stone Guest" took place on the New Stage. Music Director: Anton Grishanin Stage Director: Dmitry Belyanushkin “Stone Guest” opera by Alexander Dargomyzhsky premiered on the New stage on March 11, 2016. Music Director: Anton Grishanin Stage Director: Dmitry Belyanushkin

Medieval thriller about true love
FROM THE HISTORY OF CREATION

The story of the Seville aristocrat Don Juan Tenorio has become one of the most sought-after theatrical plots. It is simply impossible to count all its variations ever presented on stage! The myth of Don Juan has become one of the most beloved in culture, and the image of the hero has become iconic and all-encompassing. Each era has found something of its own in it. From a "mischievous" he turned into a philosopher, from a skeptic - into a neurotic, from a rebel - into an ardent lover. Don Juan managed to be a conqueror and a decadent, a superman and a dreamer. Cursed and forgiven, challenging the universe and repentant - this hero has become a kind of litmus test for every era. And sometimes his appearance marked a new frontier in art, and the appeal to this plot became a kind of manifesto for many authors.

This happened with Dargomyzhsky's The Stone Guest, one of the most daring and innovative operas of the second half of the 19th century. Dargomyzhsky came up with the idea for The Stone Guest in 1863, but he took up composing the opera only three years later - according to the author, he was frightened by the unusual and daring task. Work on the opera progressed slowly: the composer's health began to deteriorate rapidly.

“Despite my grave condition, I sang a swan song ... You will understand what kind of work it is when you find out that I am writing music to Pushkin’s text without changing or adding a single word. Most of our music lovers and newspaper hacks don't recognize me as an inspiration. Their routine glance is looking for melodies that are flattering to the ear, for which I am not chasing. I don't intend to reduce music to fun. I want the sound to directly express the word. I want the truth . "

"The Stone Guest" aroused great interest even at the time of writing. At the musical evenings of the Kuchkists, the composer regularly introduced his friends to the new pages of the opera, repeating: “If I die without having time to finish The Stone Guest, let Cui finish it, and Korsakov orchestrate . ”

“He knew that he would not get up again ,” wrote Vladimir Stasov, “ he endured inexpressible suffering from the illness that carried him away, and, however, in spite of everything, he continued to compose and with a weak hand finished his opera, his best and most perfect creation , clearly understanding all its great significance and hurrying, so that death would not warn him. This victory of the spirit over the body, this triumph of the creative spirit over the most unbearable sufferings, this boundless devotion to the cause, which alone fills the whole soul—isn't this greatness! Indeed, such colossal creations as the "Stone Guest" can only come from the head of someone for whom the creation of his creative spirit is everything, all life, all love, all his existence .

On January 17, 1869, Dargomyzhsky died, the composer died with the open manuscript of The Stone Guest in his arms. The last eleven verses of the first picture remained unfinished. Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov completed the opera in 1870. And on February 16, 1872, it was presented for the first time at the Mariinsky Theatre.

A controversy immediately arose around the opera: it was both fiercely scolded and extolled to incredible heights. The "Stone Guest" turned out to be too unusual. Dargomyzhsky really tried "unprecedented business", he proposed a completely different model of the theater - without classical operatic forms. There are no arias, no duets, no ensembles in The Stone Guest. But there is a living human speech with all its features, intonations, mood swings. There is subtle, well-crafted dialogue. There is an incredibly accurate psychological drawing of each role. This chamber experimental opera can be called the first Russian "musical drama".

AT THE GRAND THEATER

The Bolshoi Theater addressed the "Stone Guest" twice. The premiere at the Bolshoi took place on December 19, 1906. Conductor Vyacheslav Suk, director Iosif Lapitsky and artist Konstantin Korovin worked on the performance. The performance ran for only three months and during that time was shown seven times. But the next "Stone Guest" became a landmark for the Bolshoi Theater. The production, conducted by Mark Ermler and directed by Oleg Moralev (artist - William Klementiev), remained in the repertoire for more than twenty years (from December 24, 1976 to December 7, 1999), during which time the performance was performed 266 times. Vladimir Atlantov, Alexei Maslennikov, Alexander Vedernikov, Arthur Eisen, Tamara Milashkina, Galina Kalinina, Makvala Kasrashvili, Tamara Sinyavskaya, Galina Borisova and many other stars of the Bolshoi Theater shone in it.
DMITRY BELYANUSHKIN ABOUT HIS PERFORMANCE

- Don Juan has become one of the main archetypes in art. Why do you think? There is, for example, Casanova, there are more ancient versions of this character…

- Don Juan is more interesting! He's not just a ladies' man and an adventurer, he goes further. Don Juan is somewhat akin to Faust. This is a free thinker. He does not recognize social foundations. He lives just the way he wants to. Lives in the moment.

A lot has indeed been written about Don Juan, this story has been retold and reworked a thousand times. Each century had its own Don Juan, his behavior changed, his very psychophysics. He was a cynic, an erotic song poet, a romantic and a thinker. He was the hero of both adventurous comedies and serious dramas. And there are works where Don Juan, like Faust, is forgiven. And even bless for marriage!

- Which Don Juan is closer to you?

- I am interested in Hoffmann's Don Juan - a man who is in constant search for the meaning of life, who is looking for the perfect woman and can not find her in any way. Maybe also Don Juan Musset, although he is more passive and rather allows himself to be conquered. And Pushkin's Don Juan, of course! His hero generally occupies a special place among all other Don Juans, because he still finds the meaning of life, meets true love. Now that's interesting! Watching a hero - a cynic, a skeptic who has already tried everything in this life - and suddenly falls in love. How many women did he have in Mozart's "Aria with a List"? Two thousand sixty-five! And suddenly - true love, and it changes him dramatically. It seems to me that the story of Pushkin and Dargomyzhsky is about this.

- The opera "The Stone Guest" is called the most accurate translation from a poetic language into a musical one.

- I wouldn't call this opera a simple translation of Pushkin's tragedy, after all, there is an author's point of view here. Dargomyzhsky and Pushkin go in the same direction, although, of course, there are differences in small details.

The opera had a rather mixed reception, and you can see why. But The Stone Guest turned out to be very important for Russian culture, especially for musical theater. This is a kind of attempt to return to the origins of opera art. How did the opera begin? From "drama per musica" - "musical drama". Music was born from the word, was very closely connected with it. It is to this essence of the opera that Dargomyzhsky is trying to return. And if we look at the further development of Russian opera, we will see a lot of echoes of The Stone Guest, primarily from Mussorgsky.

Of course, for artists, this is a very difficult composition. After all, here they should be not just singers, they are actors who act by singing.


- The whole opera is built on subtle nuances, mood swings. Was it difficult to work on it?

- It's incredibly addictive! I get just crazy pleasure from working on intonations, semitones, mood swings. Many artists are not accustomed to small detailed work - in opera they usually paint with large strokes. And in “The Stone Guest” literally every bar something happens: a new instrument in the orchestra changes the mood, there are intonational changes in the vocal line ... This work is psychologically very difficult for the artist, here you need not only to see the conductor, interact with a partner and sing, but and very sensitive to hear the music, to respond to the slightest changes in the orchestra.

Realizing the complexity of the work, we approached it not quite standard. In musical theater there is no drinking period, as in drama, here it is replaced by lessons with an accompanist. And the director usually meets the singer already at the mise-en-scene rehearsals, when the part is learned and “sung”. But this time, conductor Anton Grishanin and I got involved at the stage of the lessons, went through the whole part together with the singer, worked on intonations, on meanings. In "The Stone Guest" one cannot hide behind spectacular arias and ensembles, here each character is seen in close-up, and the meaning depends on how the artist sings this or that phrase.


- What will be your "Stone Guest"?

- We, like Dargomyzhsky in his time, also decided to return to the origins - to the birth of this myth. Remember who was the prototype of Don Juan, how it all began. And there was a real person named Don Juan Tenorio - a Seville aristocrat, a friend of the king. Together they committed excesses and indulged in all sorts of pleasures, not without violence and murder. And when Don Juan killed the Commander, the Franciscan monks (and the church in Spain was then very strong) made an appointment with him in the church on behalf of a stranger and killed him. And then they spread the rumor that the statue of the Commodore cast Don Juan Tenorio into hell.

I decided to look at the "Stone Guest" through the prism of this real story. And suddenly a lot of things became clear, the motives of some actions immediately arose, a causal relationship was built, and everything fell into place. Who are Laura's guests? Why does a monk appear in the first picture? Why is he talking about Donna Anna? We get such a medieval detective story. Even a thriller, perhaps. This, incidentally, contributes to the opera itself. Dargomyzhsky, after all, had an amazing sense of time, he wrote an opera with perfect timing. At the same time, the plot is incredibly exciting, and the concentration of events is such that the action develops simply rapidly. At the end of each picture there is a very sharp event, and the viewer will gradually solve the puzzle: why is all this happening, what connects these people ...

Our detective story is one layer. But there is also another, human - a story about how love changes people. In our performance, the invitation of the Commander to Donna Anna is not some kind of blasphemous act. This is a very poignant moment: Don Juan understands that he can no longer get out of Madrid, but he will never step over himself - until the end he will live only as he wants, and he has just found the meaning of life, found love. This is a moment of incredible, desperate happiness and at the same time a challenge - to death, to the system ...

- How do you see the heroines of the opera?

- Laura and Donna Anna are two different elements. We can say that they both save Don Juan - each in its own way. Laura is close to him in spirit, he sincerely adores her. Laura is a very important character in our history, she is not just a frivolous actress, each of her actions is filled with a certain meaning, even her romances are not just romances.

And Donna Anna is the only person with whom Don Juan can be himself. In Karel Capek's Confessions of Don Juan, the pastor tells the dying hero that he has never been himself, never lived a real life. And it's the same in our story: Don Juan changes roles, changes women and feels empty. And with Donna Anna, he can be real, he can finally take off all the masks. It's not easy, it hurts, it's almost impossible to decide.

Dargomyzhsky has a moment of genius, very poetic - Donna Anna fainting. This is an amazing metaphor, Pushkin has it, and Dargomyzhsky picks it up. This is not a household faint, this is a moment of change in consciousness, attitude. The world, which seemed clear and rational, suddenly changes dramatically. This is the moment of the birth of the new Don Juan and the new Donna Anna.

- What about Leporello and the Commander?

- Leporello has long ceased to be just a servant - probably from Mozart's Don Giovanni. From Leporello Dargomyzhsky and Pushkin, they often make such a come to their senses and repentant character who reads moralizing. It seems to me that this is not entirely true. In our history, he is, above all, the closest friend of Don Juan. But the circumstances are such that he has to make a very difficult choice.

As for the Commander, here we deliberately left the mystical aspect. The commander is an excuse to remove an objectionable person. It has no personality, we will only see the hand. This is the personification of the system against which Don Juan rebels. A system that grinds people and breaks destinies.

English

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The Stone Guest by Dargomïzhsky, Alates (2016/2017), Juhatatud Dmitry Belyanushkin,, Dirigent Anton Grishanin, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, Russia

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