“White Nights of Venice”: a moment that turns life around

A press conference was held in the capital dedicated to the play “White Nights of Venice”, which will premiere on November 2, 2022 at the Museum of Cosmonautics on the birthday of director Luchino Visconti.

“Our Russian-Italian theater project,” says the author of the theater project, producer, Honored Artist of Russia, actor of the Vakhtangov Theater Vladislav Demchenko, “was created with the support of the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives. The playwright, GITIS teacher Alina Gudareva wrote for us an original play based on the works of Thomas Mann and Fyodor Dostoevsky, focusing on the image of two great cities – St. Petersburg and Venice, thereby emphasizing the aspect of interweaving and complementarity of the great cultures – Russian and Italian. In the center of the plot is the meeting of two lonely people – the Writer and the Dreamer, representatives of different countries and different social strata of society. Heroes, without knowing it, love the same woman. It seems to the viewer that it is this woman who will have to turn their lives around. But this is not entirely true: a woman gives them an experience of love that they never had, but the experience of real spiritual human intimacy is much more important for the heroes. Both of them discover that love is a feeling that is inside. And it doesn’t matter how the stories of their relationship with a particular woman end up. We will play the performance on Luchino Visconti’s birthday: at one time, the magic of St. Petersburg and Venice inspired the director to create two film masterpieces – “Death in Venice” and “White Nights”. Both great works by Thomas Mann and Fyodor Dostoevsky became the basis of our project. In such a difficult geopolitical period, when Russian culture in Europe is being diligently tried to be destroyed, crossed out, our project is a confirmation that culture has no boundaries and is the property of all mankind. And the centuries-old cultural traditions of Italy and Russia have long become the pride and heritage of all mankind.

The press conference was attended by the director – Leyla Abu-al-Kishek, whom the audience knows from her work at the Vakhtangov Theater, as well as the actors – the main actors. The writer will be played by Vladislav Demchenko, the Dreamer by the Italian artist Marco Dinelli, the Stranger by the Italian actress Sidney Vichidomini.

The performance is also interesting for its curious approach to solving the scenographic space, in the creation of which the stage designer, the famous Russian artist Svetlana Konegen, took part, whose exhibitions are now held all over the world. Svetlana has been living in Venice for many years, her own perception of both cities resulted in an unusual scenography using a modern visual range that presents the audience with a lot of surprises.

“St. Petersburg, where I was born,” says Svetlana Konegen, is a phantom city, a ghost town. He, like Venice, lies on the border of two elements – air and water. Petersburg has charm, knows how to fall in love with itself, but it also knows how to ruthlessly break human destinies. The character of Venice is certainly sly. She can turn to face you, a bright, blooming, alluring maiden, or she can seem like a hopelessly withered old woman, whose former charm makes the ingenuous observer recoil. So she jokes, and these jokes are scary and fascinating at the same time.

At the press conference, one could see and examine closely one of the luxurious costumes created by the hands of Russian fashion designer Victoria Andreyanova, head of the President-Service Model House under the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation. Today Victoria is working on the wardrobes of the first persons of the state.

“I am grateful to Vlad Demchenko,” says Victoria Andreyanova, “who literally pushed me into this project. Vlad, obsessed with the idea, told me so emotionally about his project that I didn’t even understand at what point I agreed to work in it, although my thoughts were completely occupied with the new season and the new collection. But I really appreciate that in such a turbulent period, when the fashion industry is going through changes, when it is very important to hold on and do without crashes in your own business, a project suddenly appears that pulls you out of a not too pleasant reality, and immerses you in soul-saving trips around Venice, on Peter and creativity in general. This is far from my first theatrical project: sister Katya Strizhenova and her husband Sasha Strizhenov are connected with the theater, and I often made costumes for their projects. I am a theater artist by profession. When we were just starting to work on White Nights of Venice, I asked our director what she wanted more – the exact historicism that lay on the surface, or a little fasion. To my delight, Leila chose fasion – it was great. And then I let go of myself, began to act as emotionally as if I were working on a new collection. I worked on this performance, going from the images of Thomas Mann and Fyodor Dostoevsky, but at the same time focusing on modern trends. And then the actors inspired me a lot.

The director of the play “White Nights of Venice” – Leyla Abu-al-Kishek, fans of the Vakhtangov Theater know from the performances “Frida. Life in color”, “Nijinsky. Brilliant Idiot”, “Promise at Dawn”.

“I had many different experiences when working with foreign artists, this is my first experience in this sense,” says director Leyla Abu-al-Kishek. — But Sidney and Marco are fluent in Russian, there were no difficulties in mutual understanding. Working with representatives of different theater schools is always enrichment. At the center of this story of ours is a lonely person who is looking for love and understanding. It was important for us not to leave, on the one hand, the idea of ​​Dostoevsky and Mann, and on the other hand, to create our own history. Our Dreamer is the hero of Dostoevsky, but it was very interesting for me to feel and create an Italian Dreamer who lives not with us, but in Venice (he is played by Marco Dinelli). What is he like? And it was just as interesting to create the image of the Writer (he was described by Thomas Mann), having understood for himself what he, the Russian Writer, is like.

The performance, according to the creators, turned out to be about love and about a moment that can turn the usual course of life. “… My God! A whole minute of bliss! Isn’t that enough even for the whole life of a human?” (Thomas Mann)

At the same time, the production will become a philosophical reflection on the ephemeral nature of everything beautiful in life – beauty and youth, as well as a reflection on the transience of fame and the inevitability of death.

The first four performances on November 2, 3, 5 and 6 will be played on a charitable basis – for students of creative universities and older people.

Elena Bulova.

Author’s photo