The premiere of Shchedrin’s opera “Not Only Love” took place at MAMT

The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater presents on the March holidays the premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s opera “Not Only Love” staged by conductor Felix Korobov, director Evgeny Pisarev, artists Maxim Obrezkov (set design), Maria Danilova (costumes) and Asya Mukhina (video) . An important role in the production was played by the choreography of Sergei Zemlyansky and the work of choirmaster Stanislav Lykov. The success of the performance was impressive: the authors of the performance managed to fully reveal all the facets of this masterpiece of 20th-century opera.

Opera of the 20th century, as a rule, has difficulty finding its way to the hearts of the public. Even when it is a recognized masterpiece like Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” or Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” This is because the path of music to the heart is through… the ears. And ordinary, lazy ears always ask for the melody of Verdi or Tchaikovsky. And yet, sometimes it is worth overcoming stereotypes and listening to those great intonations that are born of the talent of a modern composer. However, the “modernity” of the score “Not Only Love” is very relative: it was written in 1961 with a libretto by Vasily Katanyan (husband of Lily Brik), which is based on the stories of the writer and villager Sergei Antonov, known for the script of the cult Soviet melodrama “It Was in Penkov” “

However, Shchedrin’s music is not at all similar to Kirill Molchanov’s song “There are so many single guys, but I love a married man…”. The style of this composer is completely different, special, brightly individual. The scale and detailed elaboration of dramaturgy is combined with an amazing sense of timing and an ideal arrangement of climaxes. Just like in a good Hollywood film, you don’t relax for a minute and follow the composer’s continuously developing idea. And, of course, great credit for this belongs to Maestro Korobov, who confidently and inspiredly leads the orchestra, choir, soloists and spectators, not allowing them to be distracted.

At first glance, the plot of the opera seems quite ordinary. But only for the first one. 1955 The new generation of men, decimated by the war, has not yet grown up. The collective farm is led by 28-year-old Varvara, lonely, strong, seemingly devoid of emotions, who has taken on the burden of colossal responsibility. Larisa Andreeva in this role does not copy types from Soviet films about collective farms. Beautiful, tall, strong, she rather resembles the image of a priestess, queen or goddess who forbids herself human weaknesses in the name of duty.

Maxim Obrezkov and Asya Mukhina painted a disturbing picture, deliberately depriving it of its bucolic beauty: bare land ready for sowing, a high-voltage power line stretching to the horizon, heavy clouds in the sky and endless rain, making it impossible to sow. And this is not just an everyday problem of some Soviet collective farmers far from us. The theme rises to the level of pagan myth, in which people live in absolute harmony and unity with nature. There will be no sowing, there will be no harvest. There will be no harvest, there will be no life.

The classic operatic love triangle here also demonstrates an amazing fusion of everyday realistic conflict with the heights of true tragedy. The young boy Volodya, a frivolous babble, spoiled by the attention of girls, appears before his more than modest fellow villagers, like Sergei Sergeevich Paratov – in a white suit and elegant shoes. Kirill Matveev creates a very bright character of a charming windbag, who, with his asociality, destroys the templates of the rigid system of the village community. Varvara falls in love with Volodya. And this love is nothing more than passion, “chemistry,” erotic attraction. The music is literally choked with passionate intonations, rich harmonies, and expressive melodic turns. Varvara is already ready to obey her feelings, although Volodya has a young bride, Natasha – her role is performed by the gentle and feminine Maria Makeeva, the owner of a very beautiful soprano. However, here each soloist demonstrates excellent vocal qualities. And this applies not only to the performers of the main roles, but also the secondary ones: Stanislav Lee (Ivan Trofimov), Felix Kudryavtsev (Fedot Petrovich), Veronika Vyatkina (Katerina).

Rodion Shchedrin wrote the most expressive parts for singers, in which recitativeness is extremely intertwined with melody. The composer, following the traditions of Dargomyzhsky and Mussorgsky, presents a standard musical language that is characteristic of the best examples of academic musical drama of the twentieth century, which does not lose touch with classical opera. The singers here sing, and do not tear the ligaments by jumping at sharp intervals, as is often demanded by modern composers who do not like either singers or listeners. Shchedrin loves both. And therefore even the most inexperienced public is ready to answer him in kind.

The choir scenes are a different story. Shchedrin’s choirs are always bewitchingly beautiful. Here they are simply incredibly heavenly, angelic. It is believed that the opera is based on ditties and that the score has some folk roots. This is unlikely to be the case. Nationality is important for this opera, not in an ethnic aspect, but rather in a mythological one. The famous ditties from the second act (it is entirely built on an extended stylized quadrille) do not carry any “folklore” in themselves. And if it is present, it is in approximately the same version as Stravinsky’s. This is perhaps the most modernist part of the opera, which, in fact, is the whole thing – the clearest example of modernism, and perhaps even the beginning of postmodernism. And there is nothing to be surprised here: Russian music from the middle of the 19th century determined the most avant-garde movements in art.

Immediately after Adriana Lecouvreur at the Bolshoi Theater, drama director Evgeny Pisarev offers the audience his version of the opera Not Only Love. And again it achieves enormous success, which is obviously not accidental. Despite the seemingly enormous difference between these scores, they have something in common: the director quite correctly perceives the verism of Francesco Cilea and the realism of Rodion Shchedrin as some kind of cunning device, behind which lies the reading of these stories as plots from the life of the gods. Comedy actress Frances Adriana and collective farm chairman Varvara Vasilyevna are not beauties from a soap opera. They are real opera goddesses. The ability and desire of a modern director not to reduce a masterpiece to petty trifle, but to raise it to Olympus as much as possible – for this Pisarev bows deeply. And, perhaps, we must admit that Evgeny Pisarev turned out to be the first director who came to opera from drama, who became truly necessary and useful to this divine genre.