“Moscow Operetta” hides its age: the theater celebrates its anniversary

The Moscow Operetta Theater is 95 years old. The genre, as they say, is forever young, so no one is shy of age. And then there is the most relevant thing in this genre at the present time: gender certainty. That “one cannot live without women in the world, no,” it is men who sing here. And women are always luxuriously dressed. Because even in the most modern productions it should be like this: “I am all in diamonds, stockings with an arrow, high heels …” People come to the Moscow Operetta for a holiday. And to present them with a highly artistic holiday, high-quality, professionally made, modern and at the same time traditional, is a huge responsibility.

“Today, the Moscow Operetta is a fusion of youth and experience, operetta and musical, classics with absolute novelty. In recent years, we have shown the public at least 20 world premieres, completely new performances composed specifically for our order,” says theater director Vladimir Tartakovsky. — Our artists have both academic and pop vocals, which is a rarity and allows them to play in classical operettas by Kalman and Strauss and ultra-modern musicals. This is the third generation of actors we are educating on the basis of the Shchukin Institute of Theatrical Art. They are truly synthetic artists: they sing and dance beautifully, but at the same time they have the skill of dramatic artists. Creativity is everything. The theater is capable of projects of any complexity, and the only thing we lack is space. We have a magnificent large hall that can accommodate more than 1,500 spectators, but the theater’s repertory capabilities are much wider.

And now some interesting facts from the history of the Moscow Operetta.

1. “Operetta” hides its age. In fact, the Moscow Operetta is not 95, but … 100 years old. During the years of the New Economic Policy, more precisely, in 1922, in the premises at Bolshaya Dmitrovka, 17 (the building for the musical theater of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko was later built on this site), the Operetta Theater was opened – the first in Moscow, and in all of Russia. It was private, in the spirit of the times. The building is tight. They played there during the cold weather, and in the summer they moved to the Hermitage Garden, where performances were given at the Mirror Theater. Three years later, the theater was renamed the Theater of Musical Comedy, performed in a variety theater; renamed again – became known as the “Labor team of operetta artists” … It was this labor team in 1927 that became the basis for the state theater. So why not celebrate the 100th anniversary? Probably, the operetta, as a representative of the female gender, wants to be younger.

2. The mystery of the images on the ceiling. Remember the famous ceiling lamp of the auditorium? Test yourself for attentiveness and remember who is depicted in the portraits surrounding the giant chandelier. These are 12 great composers, none of whom have shown themselves in the genre of operetta: Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mozart, Rubinstein, Dargomyzhsky, Bizet, Mussorgsky, Verdi, Borodin and Wagner … The only exception can be considered with a big stretch Mozart: the genre of the singspiel – a comic opera with conversational dialogues – is somewhat reminiscent of an operetta. Well, perhaps even Bizet: his “Carmen”, which was originally written with dramatic dialogue scenes, can be considered the prototype of the musical. The rest do not fit into the can-can and cascade aesthetics. The fact is that the authorship of the design of the ceiling belongs to the artist Konstantin Korovin. And this happened at a time when the mansion of the wealthy merchant Solodovnikov was being rebuilt to create a private opera house. There was Mamontov’s opera, then Zimin’s private opera… The operetta theater didn’t even come close to this building. The troupe wandered around Moscow. She played in the Green Theater of the Gorky Park of Culture, in the premises of the current Theater of Satire, even in the Hall of Columns. The Moscow Operetta Theater settled in its current building only in 1961.

3. “Moscow operetta” in the war. Almost 60 theater employees were drafted into the army in the early days of the Great Patriotic War, and the theater itself was evacuated to Kuzbass. But not all. Many artists remained in the capital, including the founder of the theater, its “star” Grigory Yaron. The actors got together and began to play performances in Moscow. Their performances were a huge success – the fighters arriving in the capital on a short vacation rushed to the theater for an energy charge, for human emotions, for wonderful music. Theater artists participated in fourteen front-line brigades, giving about one and a half thousand concerts during the war years. The actress Klavdiya Novikova then directed the theatre. She organized a permanent brigade, which actually did not leave the front until the end of the war. Participation in the brigades was completely voluntary, but it never occurred to anyone to refuse to travel to the front. The actresses performed in front of the fighters in full operetta attire: ball gowns, golden shoes, stockings with an arrow, high heels. If it was raining, the soldiers held an impromptu canopy made of raincoats over the artists. The artists of the brigade gave their last concert in Berlin. And they signed on the wall of the Reichstag: “Here was a team of the Moscow Operetta Theater – Novikov, Khmelnitsky, Stepanova, Ryshkin, Zhigacheva …”.

4. An operetta married a musical. At the very end of the 20th century, the Moscow Operetta Theater for the first time in Russia realized a new form for the Russian theater – a daily musical based on the model of Broadway shows: the play Metro, which the Polish production team adapted to the stage of the Moscow Operetta. It was a sensational experiment – an occasion for discussions, disputes, battles. Russian theatergoers have learned what a Class A license, open casting, daily rentals, the fan institute, and other exotic attributes of a commercial theater are. It turned out that the format of such a musical “marries” perfectly with the repertory theater. The Moscow Operetta was the first to demonstrate this and continues to develop all kinds of such an alliance. What is the sign of a healthy relationship? Of course, offspring. “Moscow Operetta” in the 21st century gave birth to two dozen absolutely healthy, beautiful, successful, brilliant “children” – the world premieres of performances created specifically for the theater were successfully held and continue to go on the stage, where classical masterpieces such as “Silva” are played . Two of these “children” have made incredible careers: for the first time in the history of Russian theater, the performances of Anna Karenina and The Count of Monte Cristo have become franchises. “Anna Karenina” was played in Seoul and Beijing, “The Count of Monte Cristo” starts in Shanghai from the beginning of December.

Well, for its anniversary, Operetta prepared the premiere of the musical Prince Silver. Composer Arkady Ukupnik and playwright Karen Kavaleryan wrote it on the basis of the historical novel by A.K. Tolstoy, which tells about the times of the oprichnina.

“This is a very important work for us: an extremely serious work, turned deep into Russian history,” says Vladimir Tartakovsky. — We retell it in a modern language, accessible and attractive to the general public, which, as we assume, will be impressed by the relevance of the topic, consonance with today.