Actor’s song festival ended in the capital of the Urals

The All-Russian festival of actor’s song “Sing, swallow, sing”, which was held in Yekaterinburg for the fourth time, summed up the results and announced the names of the winners. Apparently, the capital of the Urals is becoming the center of the actor’s song, as it was once the cradle of Russian rock. The MK observer worked as the chairman of the competition jury and watched everything from the inside.

I must say that this actor’s “Swallow”, in turn, honestly continues the work of the Mironov Festival, which in the early 90s was the first in the country to start the movement of actor’s song.

The jury gathered a strong team, not only professionals who know everything about acting singing, but also successfully practicing in it or in adjacent territories – composer Sergei Shustitsky, actress of the Vakhtangov Theater Yulia Rutberg, playwright Sergei Plotov, who works a lot in the musical theater, pianist, teacher of the Moscow Conservatory Alexei Voronkov, actors Lilia Shaikhitdinova and Ivan Zamotaev. By the way, the latter once became laureates and diploma winners of the Mironov Festival. In Yekaterinburg, they also lit up, at a gala concert.

I was pleasantly surprised that pseudo-sufferings for unrequited, unrequited love have practically disappeared from the repertoire of the contestants. Actors prefer story songs to them, allowing them to act out mini-performances. And here the classics of the Soviet song are indispensable – Pakhmutova-Dobronravov, Dashkevich-Kim, Zatsepin-Derbenev, Ostrovsky-Oshanin, Gladkov-Entin. On this territory, the performances of the students of the Yekaterinburg Theater Institute (the trio “Babyshshchi”) were especially distinguished, who famously assembled works of various authors in their compositions. Three women in the role of deeply pregnant ladies at the reception at the antenatal clinic began with the Soviet hit “Love Ring”, and, like a skewer, effortlessly, stringed other, no less popular melodies. They shared third place with Marianna Urvanova, also a student, who played the song Tu vuo fa l’americano with a support group in the format of a boarding school for noble maidens.

On the second place were representatives of Moscow – Sofya Bessonova from GITIS with a difficult song “Kolya” and Elizaveta Pyatinkina from a little-known geographical point – the city of Cheremkhovo, whose only theater bears the name of the wonderful playwright Vladimir Gurkin. Who does not know his play “Love and Doves” – does not know anything. So, the actress from Cheremkhovo appeared in the image of Little Red Riding Hood, enhancing it with the costume of the heroine of the fairy tale Perrault and, most importantly, with a parody of the hit “Hooliganochka” by Masha Rasputina. At the same time, she so accurately removed the intonation and plasticity of the pop star of the 90s that the audience went wild with delight.

In the first place was the marvelous actress from St. Petersburg, Yulia Asorgina, who works in the genre, the fashion for which is changeable – cabaret. This vintage suggests a special style of performance, intonation, atmosphere, but, despite all the intimacy of the genre, the most famous song from the repertoire of Charles Aznavour “Quiet Love” performed by Julia was a great success: so subtly and elegantly, with elements of the language of the deaf and dumb, the actress decided and performed it .

Three special jury prizes were given to three actresses: Yekaterina Gulay from Makeyevka, Donetsk region, Vera Dubenko from Penza, and Alla Zakharova from Nizhnevartovsk, who ended up in Yekaterinburg by a miracle because her flight from Nizhnevartovsk was delayed by seven (!!!) hours, and the artist had no chance of making it to the competitive audition. But … that’s what acting fate means – she wanted Alla to still fly in and the jury listened to her separately.

Ekaterina Gulay from Makeevka told me that their theater has been closed since the beginning of the SVO and the artists travel around the region and the country with performances, recently performed in Moscow. And they are used to living under constant shelling. “It’s like we are playing Russian roulette,” Katya said, “when I go to the theater by bus, I clearly understand that either I will have a training today, or there will be nothing. We are used to living like this.”

And finally, the grand prix: oddly enough, it was given to the actresses of the local puppet theater, on the site of which a gala concert of the winners of the competition and members of the jury took place. By the way, this time a lot of artists took part in the competition, working behind a screen, because of which, it seems, they want to go out to the audience so much. Moreover, many of them have enviable vocal abilities. So, Yekaterinburg puppeteers managed to get ahead of their colleagues due to two amazing numbers – “Prayer” – with the participation of a puppet and a hooligan folk song about a black beetle.

In the first issue, five actresses dressed in black on a banner carefully led a doll in a white robe and with a candle in their “hands”, while simultaneously performing a song stylized as church hymns. The original performance of complex vocal material rightly deserved the highest rating, and visually the actresses, as if becoming invisible, disappeared into the doll.

The jury members worked on the mistakes with the contestants for two days. If we summarize them, then the choice of a repertoire that does not correspond to the capabilities or individualities of the contestants can be attributed to the systemic errors of actor-singers. And some have clearly confused the actor’s song with the competition of musical or operetta artists.

And the actor’s song is not as simple as it seems at first glance, and it must not only be sung, but lived, as a role is lived on stage, but only in a very short period of time. And become directors of this song, showing your creative and personal potential. And another problem was identified by the fourth festival of singing actors: only representatives of the weaker sex came out as winners, leaving men behind. Whether this is an accident or a frightening pattern – we will find out in a year.