| The Little World Theater presented the project “Opera is Possible All Around” The Little World Theater has so far produced only two opera productions: “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Michael Nyman and “The Magic Flute, or The Wonderful Duda” based on Mozart. Both made a lot of noise in Moscow, were musically and scenically unique, and the Little World Theater earned a reputation as a serious supplier of alternative opera production.
The collective project “Opera is Possible All Around,” consisting of three specially written one-act chamber operas, is noticeably more hermetic than the two previous performances both in language and in the manner of presentation. It is aimed more at specialists and amateurs and does not in any way touch outside audiences, as was the case with Nyman (by definition) and Mozart (by selection of authors and participants).
Three composers - Ksenia Prasolova, Stefan Andrusenko and Pyotr Apollonov - composed three beautiful opuses, united by a literary style (based on the operas, respectively, “Temptation” by Kharms, “The World” and “Fact, Theory, God” by Alexander Vvedensky and, finally, “ Iordano Bruno" by Igor Terentyev), a single composition of musicians (the operas were written for an ensemble of ten musicians) and a single dramatic line - the story of the construction of a new model of the universe, in the center of which, as expected, is love and death.
“Temptation” (opera with dance) staged by Natalia Anastasyeva - gentle music of empty space through which Malevich’s figures move. They not only look (the artist Anna Koleichuk built the costumes and set design in a Suprematist-constructivist spirit), but also sound like Malevich: empty, abstract, with hints of Russian style (not only folklore, but also opera).
“Peace, Fact, Theory, God” (parable opera) staged by Alexander Ponomarev is a farcical spectacle with motley music, from which the charming ears of an American musical and European-Odessa cabaret protrude.
Jordan Bruno (tragedy) is the freshest and most organic of the small operas. Her music breathes easily, a number structure is masterfully sewn into it, only warming up the end-to-end development, her style freely digests the futuristic literature of the libretto, and the dramaturgy, piercingly and masterfully interpreted by Natalya Anastasyeva, is original and elastic. In addition, it is here that there is a role written for the fantastic Oleg Ryabets, who amazes the imagination not only with the beauty of his male soprano, but also with his acting talent. He plays Humanity so sadly and plastically that the futurist tragedy is experienced approximately like the vicissitudes of The Queen of Spades.
All operas are performed inside a circle formed by rows of spectators, which symbolizes the arena of the circus tent. Moreover, everything is orchestrated in such a way that the conductor of the “Studio of New Music” ensemble, hidden in one of the corners (at first they wanted to seat the musicians in a circle), manages to easily direct the musical action, organized on the principle of a round dance, a carousel or a walk through the expanses of world culture -- like a silver platter with a golden border.
The performance ends with the charming “Lullaby” by Nikolai Zabolotsky to the music of the TPO “Composer” performed by Oleg Ryabets, built into the structure of the performance well in meaning, but a little awkward in rhythm (the last opera does not have a long finale, that is, the performance needed something like a final chord) . In general, everything in the project is very elegant and beautifully conceived, but not always smoothly implemented. It is enough to read the “director’s explication” by Natalya Anastasyeva for all the awkwardness of the performance to be explained. But, unfortunately, this very explication - an amazingly written little literary work by Anastaseva, capable of connecting all the threads of the project - is not in the program. Without it, the meaning of the noise intermissions (“drafts of the universe walk in the gaps between the works, and behind the thin shell of the booth the ocean of time tosses and turns”) is not entirely clear, and the subtle sadness of the cosmic circus aesthetics does not fully work. This once again suggests that the performance slightly lacks openness in relation to the very universe that moves around in waves, but may not understand the performance and not feel all its piercing lyricism. Yulia BEDEROVA |
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