From The Scarlet Flower to Three Comrades. Five legendary productions of Moscow theaters

New names of performances are constantly appearing on theater bills. On the day of the premiere, actors feel nervous behind the scenes, the audience looking forward to the performances fills the halls. However, not only new performances attract the public attention. Many of the productions have been included in the repertoire for decades and invariably have full houses. The mos.ru article will tell you about five such performances. The oldest of them is over 70 years old, and the newest one will turn 24 this year.

The Scarlet Flower at Pushkin Theater

It premiered on December 31, 1949.

 

The Scarlet Flower has been named as the longest-running children’s performance by the Russian Book of Records. Today, it is successfully performed on the same stage where it premiered 73 years ago, bringing gales of laughter and applause from the young and adult audience. The magical production based on the fairy tale by Sergey Aksakov brought up more than one generation: those who had ever seen it as a child later went to the theater with their children, and then with their grandchildren.

This performance is a real time machine. The scenery and costumes look almost the same as on the day of the premiere, and the actors convey the ideas of director Leonid Lukyanov to each other.

In 1960, Vladimir Vysotsky, the young singer who had just graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School and started working in the theater, acted a part in the play. He had the role of the eccentric character called Leshy, which gave him much room for self-expression. As a forest creature, Vysotsky sang original ditties and, as remembered by his contemporaries, he was inimitable.

Swan Lake at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Musical Theater

It premiered on April 25, 1953.

Swan Lake by Pyotr Tchaikovsky directed by the outstanding choreographer Vladimir Burmeister is one of the legends of the Moscow stage. Burmeister’s version boasts choreographic ingenuity and masterful directing. His rendition lends a coherent dramaturgy and deep imagery to the ballet.

While working on the performance, Vladimir Burmeister turned to materials from the Tchaikovsky archive, trying to gain an insight into the original idea of the great composer. In his production, Vladimir Burmeister kept the second act staged by Lev Ivanov in 1894. The famous original scene of white swans entering the stage, including the dance of the little swans, was included in the ballet. Otherwise, Burmeister’s version is completely individual.

Swan Lake has been on tour in dozens of countries in Europe, Asia, North and South America and even Africa. In 1956, the performance was successfully given in Paris. Afterwards, Vladimir Burmeister received an invitation to transfer his Swan Lake to the stage of the Paris Opera. The play ran there from 1960 until the end of the 1980 s.

By the way, within a few months after the premiere, mounted police was on duty near the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Musical Theater during the performance: the excitement about the new production was tremendous.

Intriguingly, Vladimir Burmeister is a relative of Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The choreographer’s mother belonged to the Tchaikovsky family, and he is the composer’s grandnephew.

The Master and Margarita at the Taganka Theater

It premiered on April 6, 1977.

The Master and Margarita created by Yuri Lyubimov became the world’s first stage performance of Mikhail Bulgakov’s great novel. Despite the fact that the production was unscheduled, as an experiment, it is still considered a reference to this day. Decades after the premiere, Yuri Lyubimov, answering a question about the longevity secret of The Master and Margarita, said that it was all about the right, strong form, chosen then in 1977.

Interestingly, no funds were raised for the production of The Master and Margarita, so they pieced the set design together from other performances of the Taganka Theater. The curtain and the wooden cross were taken from Hamlet, the gilded frame of Pilate from Tartuffe, the cubes from Listen!, the podium from Alive, the scaffold from Pugachev and the pendulum from Rush Hour.

Juno and Avos at the Lenkom Theater directed by Mark Zakharov

The first run took place on July 8, 1981, and it officially premiered on October 20, 1981.

Juno and Avos by Alexey Rybnikov (poetry by Andrei Voznesensky) staged by director Mark Zakharov, stage designer Oleg Sheintsis and choreographer Vladimir Vasiliev is a signature performance of the Lenkom Theater. The legendary rock opera was experimental and in some ways even ahead of its time. The performance was a huge success not only on the Russian stage. the audience in France, Germany, Greece, Denmark, the USA and Israel applauded it.

Nikolai Karachentsov, who was the first actor to play the role of Count Rezanov in Juno and Avos, had appeared on stage for almost 25 years without an understudy. Later, Viktor Rakov and now Dmitry Pevtsov, Semyon Shkalikov and Igor Konyakhin landed the role. Elena Shanina was the first actress to play the role of Conchita, the count’s beloved. At different times, this character was played by Alena Khmelnitskaya, Inna Pivars, Anna Bolshova, Alla Yuganova and Anna Zaykova. Today, Aleksandra Volkova, Alena Mitroshina and Safiya Yarullina play the role.

Intriguingly, although the libretto of the rock opera is based on the twilight years of Count Nikolai Rezanov (1764–1807), a Russian diplomat and traveler, Juno and Avos is not a chronicle. Andrei Voznesensky always emphasized that his work is only ‘an echo of the lives of well-known figures. ’

Three Comrades at the Moscow Sovremennik Theater

It premiered on October 1, 1999.

A legendary performance by Galina Volchek based on the famous novel by Erich Maria Remarque is a living history of Sovremennik. Many artists have been acting in it since its premiere: Sergey Yushkevich, Aleksandr Khovansky, Sergey Girin, Elena Millioti, Tatyana Koretskaya, Oleg Feoktistov, Georgy Bogadist, Viktor Tulchinsky.

For more than 20 years, an audience has been immersed itself in the chronicle of urban life in Germany at the turn of the 1920 s−1930 s. The story of friendship between Otto, Gottfried and Robert, and the love story of the latter with Patricia, a beautiful, smart, kind and terminally ill woman, is set against the backdrop. The performance by Galina Volchek is a comfort to the fans of The Three Comrades: the tragic finale in the production became a phantasmagoric happy ending. It has no death: all four friends, young and cheerful, are racing on their faithful racing car named Karl somewhere to meet the stars.

Interestingly, the racing car acting the role of Karl was built specifically for the performance at one of the Russian automobile works.