“Opanki”: in Vakhtangov they laughed at Mozart

March 8 at the Theater. Evg. Vakhtangov played the premiere of “Amadeus”. The performance in two acts that evening became three-part, which the audience learned about when they were about to leave the stalls. Suddenly, the celebration of Mozart began. He was…forty years old.

Viktor Dobronravov was born on International Women’s Day. On the day of his fortieth birthday, he played Mozart, which any actor would envy. There were many famous guests in the hall that evening. Among them are Leonid Yarmolnik, producer Anton Zlatopolsky, his wife and TV presenter Daria Zlatopolskaya, Gennady Khazanov, who plays “False Note” with Alexei Guskov, the current Salieri.

Amadeus was staged by Anatoly Shuliev, a native of Vladikavkaz, as well as Evgeny Vakhtangov, a graduate of the director’s workshop of Rimas Tuminas at the Theater Institute. Schukin. He had already staged Lope de Vega’s The Fool at the Vakhtangov Theater, one of the short stories in the play Stefan Zweig. Novels”. His student work The King Dies by Ionesco entered the repertoire of the Vakhtangov New Stage. Now he turned to the stage version of the playwright Sergei Plotov, who voluntarily or involuntarily relied on Pushkin’s Little Tragedies and Peter Schaeffer’s Amadeus, his famous drama and script, based on which the film was directed by Milos Forman. Years of cooperation with Rimas Tuminas were not in vain. Much of it is reminiscent of Amadeus. He is like “breezes” – two characters accompanying Antonio Salieri. They are always behind the back and bring a special mood and energy to what is happening. So Tuminas, like a breeze, is invisibly present behind the backs of the actors. And the set designer Maxim Obrezkov, who gained invaluable experience in collaboration with the master, voluntarily or involuntarily creates the images that Rimas Tuminas loved and cultivated so much. Well, the “breezes” – Sharp and Flat – performed by students of Pike Mamuka Patarava and Grigory Zdorov bring carnival Vakhtangov elements. They cackle like in a poultry yard, either people or birds – God knows, depending on the course of events.

Salieri Alexei Guskov, and not Mozart at all, is the number one person here. He almost never leaves the stage. And in appearance, it fully corresponds to our ideas about what this “talentless person” should be like, that is, he is not at all what he was in reality, judging by the surviving images. Although Dobronravov’s Mozart bears little resemblance to the original, even doubly – no portrait resemblance, no hackneyed ideas about a genius that has long become a myth. First Mozart appears as a puppet, then in the flesh as a giant puppet with a mechanical device. He is cheerful and poor, loves women, and they reciprocate him, is deprived of work and hopes.

Alexei Guskov has played musicians more than once. In the series “Seventh Symphony” by Alexander Kott, his character Karl Eliasberg stood in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic at the conductor’s stand of the Radio Committee Orchestra, which performed Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony in besieged Leningrad. For the sake of this role, the actor lost 14 kg and retained an excellent shape to this day, which allows him to fly around the stage, to perform such somersaults that even young actors are not always capable of. By the way, Salieri is quite an anniversary role for Guskov, who will celebrate his 65th birthday on May 20. So this is a double benefit performance for them and Dobronravov.

And Aleksey Guskov’s “musical career” began in 2009, when he played a conductor in the European film project “Concert” by Radu Mihaileanu. In 2016, he starred as Sergei Prokofiev in the docudrama Prokofiev is Ours. In 2018 at the Theater. Evg. Vakhtangov Tuminas staged “False Note” on Guskov and Gennady Khazanov, where they played the conductor and his admirer. In our conversation, Alexei said that he loves music very much, and who knows, maybe all his life he has been doing something other than his own. Music for all these heroes was like space, and Salieri is no exception.

It turned out to be much more voluminous than an ordinary viewer thinks about this person. There is no global pettiness and envy in him, on the contrary, he is able to appreciate the gift of another. Yes, he dreamed all his life of being a famous composer and for this he did not anger God, did not do bad deeds, suppressed vices in himself. It has a lot of humanism. And the main drama lies in old age, which covered him from a young age. It sounds strange, but it turns out that it happens. It is difficult for Salieri to come to terms with the fact that suddenly, out of nowhere, a frivolous rake appeared, like doing something that requires considerable effort from him. And this insignificant person is capable of creating music that Salieri cannot write. But the “inglorious mediocrity” (which he was not) nevertheless entered eternity. Albeit with bad fame, slander, imaginary poisoning of an opponent. He is still alive, but already forgotten, and now dreams of the past. Before him, images of people who were once nearby pop up. He survived many, and Mozart for more than thirty years. Salieri lists the number of his works – 42 operas, 5 masses and further down the list. And a bust of him was created during his lifetime. But there is no happiness. It seems that the reason is not in himself, not in some circumstances and fatal injustice, but exclusively in Mozart.

And that other time resembles a lackey in habits and manners. He is dressed as if in a livery, like a teenager, jumping in short pants, and even the father himself. Mozart scoffs, slangs, suddenly shouts: “Opanki.” Do not play the same greatness and genius? Here Dobronravov parodies the stereotypes associated with Mozart, scoffs while Salieri appeals to the Russian African and scoundrel Pushkin, who depicted him in the Little Tragedies as a villain. There are a lot of connections to modernity, there are enough antics and buffoonery, but all this does not turn what is happening into KVN, as it happens all the time now. The public rejoices at any reference to today. When Baron van Swieten, played by Yevgeny Kosyrev, who looks like a plump aunt, asks the question: “What is the strength, brother?”, The reaction in the hall is instantaneous. And the answer is not according to “Brother”, not according to Sergei Bodrov. Strength, it turns out, is not in truth, but in honesty.