(the 160th birth anniversary of painter Vassily Vereshchagin)
This year marks the 160th birth anniversary of the brilliant artist,
painter of battle scenes, pacifist and philosopher Vassily Vereshchagin.
Once he wrote: "During all my life I loved the sun and wanted to paint
the sun. After I survived the war and said what I thought about it, I was
happy to devote myself once again to the sun. But the fury of the war still
persecutes me".
Vassily Vereshchagin graduated from the oldest Russian military institute,
St. Petersburg Naval Sea Cadet Corps. But he could not overcome his passion
for art and entered the Academy of Arts in St.Petersburg instead of pursuing
a staff officer career. Then he studied in the Academie des Beaux-Arts
in Paris. Vassily Vereshchagin also took part in military action in the
Asian republic of Turkistan and the Balkans. He perished with the sinking
of a Russian flagship, Petropavlovsk, which hit a Japanese mine near the
city of Port Arthur during the Russian-Japanese war in 1904.
Instead of traditional romantic pathos, conditional heroism of the
battle paintings he offered his contemporaries a historical detail, vivid
reality and sincerity of a witness, and rough routine days of ordinary
soldiers instead of parade depictions of triumphant generals. Vereshchagin
rejected academic stereotypes and learned the lessons the life itself gave.
That's what amazed and attracted his contemporaries, and, at the same time,
provoked indignation and fear in the military circle both in Russia and
abroad. French critic Jules Cloretti described such an accident. In 1882
the German Field Marshal-General and military theoretician, Helmut Moltke,
visited a display of Vereshchagin's pictures in Berlin. Moltke who treated
war as an inevitability boosting technical and even moral progress of the
humankind, got interested in military scenes, namely canvases "After
Attack", "Defeated" and "Shipka-Sheinovo", which
seemed to say that any war is human depopulation, in which there is no
winner. Vereshchagin came up with Moltke to his canvas "The Apotheosis
of War", a pyramid of sculls amidst the burnt desert, with the ruins
of a city in the background. On the frame the painter wrote his dedication
"to all conquerors, which were, which are, and those to come".
The picture was the artist's condemnation of war. Moltke looked bewildered,
he stared at the gray skulls with a set face that looked like a mask. After
a while Moltke issued an order banning the German officers from visiting
the display. The Austrian Military Minister imposed the same taboo on the
exposition declining Vereshagin's offer to allow the garrison officers
to visit freely his display in Vienna in 1881.
Vereshchagin was a sensitive portrait and landscape painter. He confessed
that besides military scenes there is a wide range of other themes that
he painted even more willingly. During his life he traveled a lot, saying
he visited Australia, but also India, Japan, Palestine and many other countries
challenged him. From each trip he brought a series of sketches and studies,
devoted to the life and customs of the natives. In his autobiography he
wrote: "Travels were a great school for me for they help me write
a lot of sketches, and collect costumes and ethnographic objects with intention
to create pictures and write books". These were, for instance, "A
Travel to the Himalayas", "Essays, Sketches, Memoirs" and
"On Progress in Art" translated into French, German, English
and Dutch. Vereshchagin used to say there is no painter, to whom as many
books and reviews as about his paintings and writings were devoted. His
displays in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna, Paris, Prague,
London, Brussels, Stockholm, New York and Chicago attracted a lot of visitors.
While the painter was alive his name was featured in European and American
newspapers. None of the Russian painters sparked such an interest in his
country or abroad. Many facts signal his influence on the world public
was pretty much considerable. One of the British magazines wrote: "His
pictures shape an epoch in our present-day history. The painter gives us
a courageous and peculiar art filled with convincing truth and philosophy".
Under his influence, the image of painter Eugene was formed in the novel
"Genius" by American writer Theodore Dreiser. Japanese writer
Nakadzato Kaidzan said: "Like Tolstoy who used his word to persuade
people in the need for peace, Vereshchagin used his paint-brush to show
war as the most dreadful and absurd thing in the world".
"THEATRE MUST BE CONTAGIOUS"
(the 80th foundation anniversary of Mayakovsky Theatre)
"Theatre Must Be Contagious: its expressive means must renew permanently
to provoke response from contemporary audiences". The stage director
of Moscow Mayakovsky Academic Theatre, Andrei Govcharov, has formulated
the credo for its company. Though he has already perished, the Theatre
marking its 80th anniversary has proved loyal to the proclaimed principles.
Curiously, the historic building of Mayakovsky Theatre housed the Paradiz
Theatre in the late 19th century and hosted touring foreign and St. Petersburg
companies and the then celebrities, such as Sarah Bernhardt of France and
Eleonora Duzet of Italy.
The theatre was founded in 1922 and at first called the Theatre of
the Revolution. It assimilated everything that could be called revolutionary
in the artistic intelligentsia circles headed by prominent stage director
and innovator Vsevolod Meyerhold, who was at first involved in searches
for new forms of agitation, political and acutely spectacular theatre.
Its repertoire obtained satiric scenes and plays on political issues "Mystery
Bouffe" and "A Bug" based on writings by Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Simultaneously, Meyerhold turned to innovative staging of writings by Russian
classics Nikolai Gogol and Alexander Griboedov.
In the 1930s the Revolution Theatre was headed by Alexei Popov, in
whose staging a new character appeared - a builder of the socialistic society.
From 1943 he was succeeded by Nikolai Okhlopkov who defined the major principles
of the theatre, namely civil issues and romantic pathetics. He produced
plays about contemporaneity. In 1954 the dedication to Vladimir Mayakovsky
was added.
The theatre's brightest artistic period falls on the 70-90s when it
was led by Andrei Goncharov, the adherent of the theory of psychologism.
He wanted to tell Russia more about Russia. He created an encyclopedia
of the Russian life in such plays as "It's a Family Affair, We'll
Settle It Among Ourselves" by Alexandr Ostrovski, "Flight"
by Mikhail Bulgakov, "Tomorrow Was the War" by Boris Vassiliev
and "Old-Fashioned Comedy" by Alexei Arbuzov. For 34 years he
gathered and brought up a wonderful company of actors, including Natalia
Gundareva, Lidia Sukharevskaya, Alexander Lazarev, Svetlana Nemolyaeva
and Igor Kostolevsky. He helped to Tatiana Akhramkova, Petr Fomenko and
Eimuntas Nyakroshus form as stage directors.
Following the death of Andrei Goncharov in 2002 Sergei Arzibashev took
over. Though he wasn't his apprentice, in various years he was invited
by Goncharov to stage in his theatre three plays.
Asked whether he feels close to the school of his predecessor, Sergei
Arzibashev said he respects traditions but there is such notion as one's
own style. He remarks his attitude towards theatre is conservative, he
sticks to the traditions of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko's theatre,
saying that the theatre must be both realistic, physiological and not boring.
Sergei Arzibashev is a gifted actor and director. He founded Moscow
Theatre on Pokrovka and for over 10 years has been its stage director.
He put on over 40 plays in various theatres in Russia and abroad, he is
well known all across the world, especially in Poland and France.
He came to Mayakovsky Theatre with essentially new ideas and has already
produced the play "Marriage" by Nikolai Gogol.
He says he turned to this very play because he intended to stage any
Russian classic writing. Further he decided to unite the artists who had
been filmed much and taken part in theatrical enterprises, but had never
appeared all together. There were proper roles for all the actors. The
"Marriage" was staged within a very brief period.
Asked how the company treated Sergei Arzibashev's appointment, one
of the theatre's leading actresses, Tatiana Augshkap describes him as a
very powerful director who has chosen a right way. Rehearsals of the eight
plays are under way at the moment. They are being produced by various directors,
among them are Tatiana Akhramkova, Leonid Kheifez and Petr Fomenko. Tatiana
Augshkap says what sparks interest to Arzibashev is that before he came
to Mayakovsky theatre he was not only stage director but also the head
of the Theatre on Pokrovka. He is aware of all the nuances of the theatrical
mechanism and knows what to lead a theatrical process on the whole means.
The Theatre will be celebrating its anniversary all the season round,
featuring Russian classic plays by Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov on its
major stage. Sergei Arzibashev is rehearsing "The Brothers Karamazov"
by Dostoevsky. The repertoire will expand due to more "light"
entertaining plays. The small stage will become an experimental pad for
youth directors.
KALMAN'S MUSIC IN RUSSIA
October 24th marked the 120th birth anniversary of the famous Hungarian
composer, Imre Kalman (1882-1953), author of the operettas "Silva",
"Countess Mariza", "The Circus Princess", "The
Violet of Montmartre" and many others. Since the debut play "Fall
Maneuvers" on the stage of the Budapest Theatre in 1908 his best compositions
have gone on to grace the stages of virtually all the world's major theatres
carrying on to live for more almost one century.
Imre Kalman's sister reminisced with humor how her brother composed
his operettas: "My brother and his librettists, Mr. Brammer and Mr.
Grunvald, meet daily. They drink several liters of black coffee, smoke
a myriad of cigarettes and cigars, tell each other anecdotes, speak about
weather, pretty women, the economy, politics, they laugh, argue and yell.
This goes on a day after another, for many months. And at last, one day
an operetta is ready." Commenting on the remark, Kalman said the composing
is far from such an easy process since it requires several thousand hours
of hard work that resulted in sparkling, melodious and contagiously merry
music. Kalman's first operetta staged in Russia was "Silva, or the
Queen of Czardas".
In 1917 Russia was rocked by the February revolution and overthrown
czarism. The events were reflected on theatrical stages in a very peculiar
manner. Various theatres featured allegedly present day programs-reviews
made hurriedly, such as "Collapse of Romanoff and Co Trade House",
"At Retired Czar's" and the like. Despite the tense situation
in the capital city of Petrograd, the theatrical halls were overcrowded.
Once a vocal score and a libretto of Kalman's new opera were delivered
to the administration of the "Summer Bouffe" theatre. The major
character, an ordinary girl Silva Varesku who outraged public prejudices,
was a long-desirable heroine for the shaken up Russian society when many
were excited with the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity. The opera
debuted in summer 1917. The cast was dazzling and the operetta with fireworks
of irrepressible joy and touching melodies intervened with Hungarian folk
themes enjoyed the great success.
The soloist of Moscow Operetta Theatre, Gerard Vassiliev, reminiscences
his first role was Edwin, in whom he liked most of all his dignity and
the fact that Edwin was an officer. This reminded Vassiliev his own career.
As for the music itself, this part had not a single aria, just participation
in duets. Then new roles in Kalman's operettas emerged - Tasillo in "Countess
Mariza", Mister X in "The Circus Princess". Gerard Vassiliev
says though mysterious and tragic image of Mister X became one of the major
for him in Moscow Operetta Theatre, he yields the palm to the wonderful
Estonian singer Georgy Ots who triumphantly performed in this role both
in theatre and in a film of 1958. This brought to Ots and Kalman's operetta
nationwide population in the Soviet Union.
Though Imre Kalman was not the father of the genre of operetta, being
far from such composers as Offenbach or Leckock, his contribution to the
genre of musical comedy is even more tangible. Before Kalman emerged operetta
had nothing to do with far-ranging dramatic situations, natural links with
reality and emotions of real people. It's not by chance, that Kalman's
operettas did not look false even amid the grueling years of the World
War II. A brilliant society on the stage, tail-coats, diamonds, scoop necks,
champagne, princes, dukes, music, fun, czardas, applause - all these became
symbols of the ever-living art and maintained faith in the future. There
is not a single Russian theatre without Kalman's operettas in its repertoire.
His music is heard at any concert of operetta artists, and both on radio
and TV.
Asked why the Russians fancy his music to such an extent, Gerard Vassiliev
says Kalman is what he calls, the most Russian composer among other foreign
musicians. Hence, his music is frequently performed and, presumably, loved
in Russia a lot. His music is folk by its nature since it combines czardas
we feel close to, and Gypsy tunes that the Russians always loved. Furthermore,
operettas' melodramatic plots sound concordant with the Russian soul.
As the matter of fact, Kalman's spouse, beautiful Vera Kalman, maiden
name Makinskaya, was a Russian national from the city of Perm. So Kalman
knew the Russian soul not by hearsay.
