“We’ll patch up the hole too!”

Nord-Ost has overcome its own death

Before the pre-premiere showing of the revived “Nord-Ost,” I had an eerie feeling: I couldn’t believe that I would enter the hall where the hostages had been languishing for three days and could, “disconnecting” from the terrible backstory, just watch the performance. It seemed that the cheerful atmosphere of “Nord-Ost” left these walls along with the first shots of the terrorists.

However, even the inevitable mourning wreaths and burning candles on the approaches to the Theater Center, the car of a police engineer squad in the parking lot, and metal detectors at the entrance did not shock, but looked like necessary attributes of a performance that was dying, but still survived. The interior decoration of the center not only did not correspond to the pictures from the October television reports, but could also compete in beauty and comfort with the interiors of the most luxurious capital theaters and concert halls. Lots of bright lamps, chrome walls, mirrors, shiny parquet, comfortable sofas in the wardrobe; young, smiling, helpful hall staff; intricate sandwiches and various fruit baskets in the buffet - for goodness sake, was this peaceful and cozy order ever disrupted? It seemed that a monstrous terrorist attack could have happened anywhere, but not on Dubrovka.

Before the press screening, journalists walked in the foyer: Russian ones, who immediately felt relaxed, and foreign ones, trying to calm the nervous gleam in their eyes and the trembling in their voices. The press conference dispelled any remaining doubts: the performance would not turn into a fight against sinister associations. Journalists gathered in the renovated auditorium. It has been completely redesigned. (The author and producer of the musical, Georgy Vasiliev, noted that even his parents were not immediately able to find their seats at the run-through “for dads and moms.”) The red chairs were replaced with gray-blue ones, and a movable side was built near the orchestra pit so that the musicians could see the audience. The new curtain, made in the shape of the iron doors of an airplane hangar, is painted to resemble a cloudy sky with planes hovering in it, and the wing of the largest of them is decorated with the license plate of the very car in which Chkalov flew over the North Pole.

The creators of the musical (bards Alexey Ivashchenko and Georgy Vasiliev, conductor-producer Ara Karapetyan) and leading actors (Ekaterina Guseva - Katya Tatarinova, Andrey Bogdanov - Sanya Grigoriev) said that they had no doubt that the performance needed to be restored: “We knew that no matter what, we needed to do this. The spirit of “Nord-Ost” - the spirit of friendship, loyalty, love - lived in us; Thanks to Nord-Ost we continued to be together. We found strength in his words and music and knew that our viewers needed him as much as we did.” The Nord-Ost residents did not change the scene not only for financial reasons: “We still decided to return to our home, as we return to a city destroyed by war, to rebuild it, filling the streets with light and joy.”

The building was indeed “renovated” so that nothing would remind of the October horror. It was equally important to “highlight the appearance of the performance itself.” The team remained practically the same - only older children left the troupe. The libretto and music have not changed. The main elements of the production have been improved: orchestration, choreography, lighting design, scenery, costumes. The motto of the play has changed: “The History of the Country” has been added to the previous “Love Story”. “Firstly, this is Kaverin’s story about two captains, touching on a long period of the history of our country, and secondly, “Nord-Ost” itself has become part of the modern history of Russia,” says Georgy Vasiliev.

According to the actors, the psychological problem was especially acute before going on stage, but with a strong-willed effort they managed to overcome it: “The entire team took the tragedy as a personal insult. We had to return the atmosphere of joy, kindness, and fun to this hall. And we returned it. Three terrible days could not stop it.” Andrei Bogdanov, however, noted that there were still some small details left that were reminiscent of the terrorist attack: in the scenery, for example, “there is a small hole from a bullet that cannot be patched up with anything.” “We’ll patch up the hole too,” Vasiliev promised.

Olga KUZNETSOVA