Broadway lawless comet

This year, a record number of nominations for the main American theater award Tony received a performance based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” - “Natasha, Pierre and the Great comet of 1812”. It was nominated in 12 categories, but received the prize in only two - for the best stage design and the best light solution. And yet this is a success.

"Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812" - a musical of the mixed genre. Critics called him an electric spike. The libretto and music was composed by Dave Malla, set up the performance by Rachel Chavkin, a world -famous singer - Josh Grobun, became the performer of the role of Pierre and the soul of the whole project. He says that almost since childhood he dreamed of playing in a staging of "War and Peace." They are all young people, and this is their first Broadway show.

Candelabra, caviar, war will not reach us!

This musical is like a parody. It seems to be collected in all Russian stamps. In fact, this mockery is not over the novel, but over these stamps. Yes, and today it is impossible to put the war and the world seriously. And about the love of the authors for Tolstoy, it says an exceptionally careful attitude to the Tolstoy text - the libretto reproduces it almost literally.

In the prolon, the artists warn the audience that the novel is confused, there are many heroes, each has nine names, so they represent everyone and sing: "Candelabra, caviar, war will not get to us!"

The content of the output of Aria Pierre best conveys the abbreviated excerpt from the novel, which begins part of the fifth second volume:

Pierre suddenly felt the impossibility of continuing his former life. The whole charm of this former life suddenly disappeared for him. There was only one skeleton of life ... in Moscow, as soon as he drove into his huge house, he felt like a deceased, warm, habitually and dirty, as in an old robe. For Moscow Sveta, Pierre was the most sweet, kind, smart, cheerful, generous eccentric, scattered and sincere, Russian, old cut, a master. His wallet was always empty because it was open to everyone ...

For a long time he could not make peace with the idea that he was the same retired Moscow chamberlain, the type of which he so deeply despised seven years ago. Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that this is only so, for now he leads this life; But then he was terrified by another thought that so far, how many people were already entering, like him, with all his teeth and hair into this life and into this club and came out of it without one tooth and hair.

Count Ilya Andreich Rostov brings his daughter Natasha and Sonya’s niece in winter. His own house is inimitable, and the count stops at his old friend Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova. Natasha is the bride of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, but at the request of his father the wedding was postponed for a year, and the groom went abroad, giving the bride the right to final decision. Marya Dmitrievna, who Natasha has a godson, starts a conversation with her, which is best to convey in a quote from the novel again:

- Well, now we’ll talk. I congratulate you on the groom. Picked up the fellow! I'm happy for you; And I have known him from such years (she pointed to arshin from the ground). - Natasha blushed joyfully. - I love him and his whole family. Now listen. You know, the old man Prince Nikolai really did not want his son to marry. Little old man! It, of course, Prince Andrei is not a child and without him will do, but to enter the family is not good. It is necessary peacefully, lovingly. You are smart, you can do as it should. You are good and smart. That's all well.

But the old prince Bolkonsky treated Natasha impolite and even rudely: he went out to her in a dressing gown and a cap.

“Ah, ma'am,” he said, “the ruling, Countess ... Countess Rostova, if I’m not mistaken ... I forgive me to excuse, excuse ... I didn’t know, ma'am.” God sees, did not know that you honored us with his visit, he went to his daughter in such a suit. Sorry, please ... God sees, did not know.

Natasha, returning to Marya Dmitrievna, sobs out of resentment in her room, "like a child, wrinkling and sobbing."

The poster of the performance. Natasha - Denis Benton, Pierre - Josh Grobun

That same evening, the count with Natasha and Sonya go to the opera. What is happening on the stage seems to Natasha ridiculous and unnatural, but she is occupied by the audience:

She alternately looked at these ranks of their armed heads in the stalls, then at the bare women in the lodges, especially at her neighbor Helen, who, completely stripped, with a quiet and calm smile, not taking her eyes, looked at the stage, feeling a bright light spilled throughout the hall, and a warm, crowd of warm air.

Tolstoy writes that this atmosphere of Big Light gets drunk to Natasha:

Natasha, little by little, began to come to the state of intoxication that she had long been not experienced.

In this state, she meets the beauty Helen Bezukova and her brother Anatole. Natasha’s longing heart is submitted by the “simple and bold” manner of Anatoly, his “naive-spring and good-natured smile”. He says that he remembers Natasha at the Naryshkin Ball, that at the last performance, Semenova fell on the stage that the Archarovs have a carousel in costumes, and Natasha definitely needs to go there that Moscow first liked it, “because the city makes the city pleasant? CE Sont Les Jolies Femmes (these are pretty women), but now I really like it.” Natasha listens to him and feels that "they are close, how she has never been to a man."

All this, almost word in word, is in the play.

Modist comes to Rostov, Natasha tries up new dresses, and at this moment Helen enters the room.

- Oh, my amazing! She said to the red -haired Natasha. - Charmante ! No, it doesn’t look like anything, my dear count, ”she said to Ilya Andreich, who entered her. - How to live in Moscow and not go anywhere? No, I will not leave you! This evening, I have M -lle Georges recites and gather some; And if you do not bring your beauties who are better than m -lle georges , then I do not want to know you.

Natasha like these compliments, and Helen, having seized the moment, tells her:

- Yesterday my brother had lunch with me - we darkened from laughter - he eats nothing and sighs for you, my lovely. He is crazy, well, it is truly crazy about you in love with you.

Lucas Style

Natasha and her father and cousin go to Helen, and there, during the dance, Anatole is explained in her love.

The Hall of the New York Imperial Theater, in which the performance is on, is stylized under the boar

The Balaga was a famous triangular coachman, who had already known Dolokhov and Anatoly for six years and serving them with his triples ... More than once he took Dolokhov from the chase, more than once he rolled them around the city with gypsies and ladies, as he called the booth. More than once, with their work, he pressed the people and cabs in Moscow, and he was always helped by the Lord, as he called them. He drove more than one horse under them. More than once there was a bit of them, more than once attacked by them with champagne and Madera, which he loved, and he knew more than one thing for each of them, which Siberia would have been earned to an ordinary person. In their worships, they often called the Balag, forced him to drink and dance with the gypsies, and more than a thousand of their money passed through his hands. Serving them, he risked his life twenty times a year and his skin and at their work crushed more horses than they overpayed him money. But he loved them, loved this crazy driving, eighteen miles per hour, loved to overshadow the cabman, and crush a pedestrian around Moscow, and fly along the Moscow streets to the whole lope.

And finally, the latest preparations: Anatole says that you have to eat on the path, Dolokhov tells the gypsy Matrine to bring Soboli Salop:

After all, she will jump out either dead, what she sat at home; He hesitated a little - there are tears, and dad, and mother, and now fidgeted, and back - and you take into a fur coat right away and carry it to the sled.

Farewell scene of Anatoly Kuragin with friends and gypsies matryoshka and stack - the climax of the performance

The Hall of the New York Imperial Theater, in which the performance is on, stylized under the cabaret. Spectators are sitting at the tables, drinking and biting, and around them, at several stage sites at once, events unfold. Actors and the public are constantly in interactive interaction. So not without reason the scenographer Mimi Lien and the artist in the world of Bradley King received their prizes. One of the scenes in which you can fully evaluate both the stage design and the amazing drive of the performers is the scene of farewell to Anatoly Kuragin with friends and gypsies matryoshka and steschka. This is the climax of the performance.

What is not in the novel is the last phrase "all the best, to the staff, let's go." Apparently, I forgot about the Russian custom to drink on the collection of the count. Every, but appropriate!

From the abduction, as we know, nothing came of it. Natasha in despair, tries to be poisoned by arsenic. Marya Dmitrievna calls for the aid of Pierre. He demands from Anatol to immediately leave Moscow. Meanwhile, Andrei Bolkonsky comes to Moscow from abroad. He coldly accepts the news of Natasha’s refusal and the story of a failed abduction. Pierre tries to soften him, reminds their old dispute ...

“I remember,” Prince Andrei answered hastily, “I said that the fallen woman should be forgiven, but I did not say that I could forgive.” I can't.

“Is it possible to compare this? ..” said Pierre. Prince Andrei interrupted him. He shouted sharply:

- Yes, again to ask her hands, to be generous and the like? .. Yes, this is very noble, but I am not able to follow in the footsteps of this master. If you want to be my friend, do not talk to me about this ... about all this.

Josh Grobun in the role of Pierre

Fulfilling the request of a friend, Pierre brings her letters to Natasha to Prince Andrei. Natasha asks through him forgiveness from Bolkonsky. Pierre's heart is compressed with pity, tenderness and love. He says to Natasha:

If I were not me, but a beautiful, smartest and best person in the world and would be free, I would ask for your knees and your love.

The final of the performance, again, is almost literally taken from the novel. Pierre leaves the house of Akhrosimova, sits in a sled.

- Now where will you order? The coachman asked.

“Where?” Pierre asked himself. “Where can you go now? Really to the club or to visit?”

He orders to take himself home and, having left the old -ended to Arbat Square, sees the starry sky above him.

Almost in the middle of this sky above Presistensky Boulevard, surrounded, sprinkled on all sides by stars, but differing from all by proximity to the ground, a white light and a long tail raised up, there was a huge bright comet of 1812, the same comet that foreshadowed, as they said, all sorts of horrors and the end of the world. But in the Pyre, this light star with a long radiant tail did not excite any terrible feeling. On the contrary, Pierre joyfully, wet with his eyes, looked at this bright star, which seemed to fly the immeasurable spaces along the parabolic line with inexpressible speed, suddenly, like a stuck in the ground, he slapped her place in a black sky here and stopped, vigorously lifting her tail and playing her white light between the innocent other flickering stars. It seemed to Pierre that this star was quite aware of what was in his blossoming to a new life, a softened and encouraged soul.

The great comet of 1811 (according to the international classification - C/1811 F1) opened the French astronomer Honore Fzherg on March 25, 1811. At that moment, the comet was at a distance of 2.7 of the astronomical unit from the sun (1 astronomical unit is approximately 149,600,000 km). The comet was visible from the ground in August. In September, she approached the sun at a distance of 1.03 a. e, the greatest brightness reached in October. In December, her tail bent at 60 degrees. In total, it was visible to the naked eye for 290 days. The latter was observed on August 12, 1812 in Novocherkassk, the Russian astronomer Vincent Vishnevsky.

Great Comet, 1811

The great comet was the largest of those observed before. Today it is inferior only to Khile Count - Boppa 1997. The diameter of its nucleus was 30–40 kilometers, the length of the tail was 176 million kilometers. According to the modern brightness scale, the visible star size of the comet of 1811 is 0.0. In the sky, there are only four same bright stars and only one - Sirius is brighter.

The summer of 1811 turned out to be extremely successful for European winemakers. It was dry and hot, and autumn was long and warm.

"Cometes Wine" is twice in Pushkin’s poems. The great comet is mentioned twice in the "War and the World." The first time Pierre sees her over Prechistensky Boulevard in the winter of 1812. The second is September 2, 1812, along with Rambal, leaving the house to the Patriarchals. As the astronomers note , there could be no other: in the winter of 1812 the sun overshadowed the comet, and in September it had already moved away from the earth so much that it became invisible.