Preview of the Nominees of this Year’s “Golden Mask” Winners

In Moscow, during the countdown to the ceremony for Russia’s Золотая маска (Zolotaya Maska: Golden Mask) national theatrical prize, the awards panel announced its nominees for the end of the 2008/09 season. The awards ceremony won’t take place until April, but, today, you can assume that one of the winners will be the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre of Moscow. Amazingly, four performances of this famous troupe are nominees. Two of them are the ballet, В Лесу (v Lesu: In the Forest), arranged by the leading Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato (Juan Ignacio Duato Bárcia), and An Evening of Classical Operetta, a ”tour” of the history of this “frivolous genre”, with “stops” at its masterpieces. In addition, two of its operatic performances got nods. One was new, Hamlet, by the modern composer Vladimir Kobekin, and there was the old romantic favourite by Gaetano Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor. Incidentally, the Golden Mask panel expects there to be 11 nominations in the category “Best Opera Production”, more than in any other section. Therefore, the competition is very severe.

According to Aleksandr Titel, the chief director of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre, “However, it is not easy to stage an opera today. Operatic performances have a most powerful impact, because they are a synthesis of many arts. Nevertheless, opera can be absurd and pathetic; when that happens, the performance lacks dramatic expression. However, when everything falls into place, something great emerges, it’s somewhat unreal, but, at the same time, it speaks to our inner being in a peculiar language… we don’t sing everything in real life. It can happen that all these arts can ‘compete’ in the hands of an inexperienced director, but, opera does have a number of idiosyncrasies that one doesn’t find in any other art. Above all, opera must be direct. As in all the performing arts, it should not disturb our sense of integrity”.

Aleksandr Titel received a nomination for the Golden Mask for his work as artistic director of the opera Hamlet. The primary source, incidentally, was not Shakespeare’s tragedy, as you might think; rather, its inspiration is a play by modern playwright Arkadiya Zastyrtsa. The full name of the opera is Hamlet, Danish Prince, Russian Comedy. According to Titel, its backdrop is rather much a tragicomedy. He said, “It’s a very free adaptation of Shakespeare. Yes, there’s the same plot and the same characters. However, they speak a language far removed from Shakespeare. Although the meaning of the characters’ utterances is the same, it is in contemporary Moscow street talk, which is a jumbled concoction of native Muscovite and provincial idioms, traditional stories, and humour. It is important that all of this affect the audience emotionally. Indeed, Vladimir Kobekin is a composer who knows how to get to the bottom of this challenge”.

By the way, Hamlet is not the only staging of a contemporary opera, nominated for a Golden Mask. Therefore, Russia’s premier theatrical award not only encourages the preservation of traditions, but, also, requires new relevance from the theatre.

18 December 2009

Olga Bugrova

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2009/12/18/3082379.html

Meet Chukcha… the Russian Jed Clampett

Could this be Chukcha? If not, it’s one of his relatives!

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Some of you have asked me about Chukcha, one of my stock characters (every columnist comes up with several to illustrate points, such as the late Mike Royko’s Slats Grobnik). He’s a stock-figure in Russian humour, being a simple-wise man. His closest analogue in American pop culture is Jed Clampett of the old sitcom on the telly, The Beverly Hillbillies. Like Jed, Chukcha may be from the back-of-the-beyond (therefore, prone to “cement pond” and “fancy-eatin’ table” malapropisms), being from the Chukchi Republic in the extreme east of the country (above the Arctic, no less), but, he knows which end is up, and don’t try to prove otherwise, by God.

Here is a typical Chukcha story:

“Chukcha has gone to Moscow. There is socialism there. It is impressive. Everything is done for the betterment of man. However… Chukcha even saw this man”.

In short, Chukcha is no one’s fool. He knows the reality behind the showy rhetoric (sounds familiar, huh?). That is, Chukcha has character… he’s real. Another figure in the Chukcha stories is the Russian geologist. The geologist plays something of the same role played by Banker Drysdale in the Beverly Hillbillies. For all his education, he is often outwitted by Chukcha, or Chukcha shows his superiority. For instance:

Chukcha and the geologist were out hunting. The geologist sighted a polar bear. Chukcha shouted, “Run!” The geologist ignored Chukcha and shot the polar bear. Chukcha came up, shaking his head. “Russian hunter, bad hunter. Now, we have to drag bear 20 kilometres back to village. However… Russian can drag bear all by himself”. Chukcha stamped off…

Of course, Chukcha and his friends probably showed up after the Russian had been forced to drag the bear long enough to learn a lesson. One of the identifying “tags” of Chukcha is the word “odnako” (“however”). Chuk’s wisdom usually follows.

What would Chukcha think of the Syosset gang in the OCA? For that matter, what would Jed Clampett say? “Oo dawgie… I WOULDN’T do THAT if I were you”. Reflect on the fact that the SVS/Syosset mob is made up of the “educated and sophisticated”, whilst Chukcha and Jed are “ignorant and simple”.

My money is on Chukcha and Jed… what about you?

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Thursday 24 September 2009

Albany NY

New Year’s Hit: Circus Show “Camelot”

The Zapashnykh brothers with one of their trained tigers

250,000 people, a number equal to a fairly-large European city, attended the New Year Circus Show Camelot in Moscow. It shall run from 27 December to 11 January. This show was the inspiration of the brothers Edgard and Askold Zapashnykh, two young performers who are the scions of a famous circus dynasty. As they are expert wild-animal trainers, their names are inscribed in the Guinness Book of World Records. Their signature feat is leaping onto the back of a lion. Energetic, talented, and driven, the Zapashnykh brothers are always looking for something new and unique. By all standards, their fantasy play Camelot is a one-of-a-kind spectacle!

“We went beyond the scope of the usual 13-metre (42-foot) ring, the traditional scope of the circus was too confining for us”, Askold stated, explaining why they had to stage this presentation in an enormous sport arena. “We can say, with great pride, that there is no analogue to Camelot in all of Russia. The circus, like all other kinds of show business, has to evolve, first of all, due to developments in other art-forms. We used the latest techniques to make a theatrical-circus spectacle with video-screens, pyrotechnics, laser effects, historical costumes, and even a water-tank with many-coloured fountains”.

100 performers and 70 trained animals perform stories from medieval epics. The Zapashnykh brothers, as in real life, play the roles of brothers, one of them symbolises the Bright Forces, whilst the other portrays the Dark Forces. The struggle of Good and Evil is treated seriously, and the tricks performed by the brothers seem beyond the reach of human possibility. For example, the brothers perform in a cage with 14 lions and tigers… why, no one in their right mind would dare to remain in close proximity to so many predators! Where else is it possible to meet polyglot parrots? The bright and handsome “parrots” (performers in costume) speak so many languages, from French to Chinese. In the battle scenes, the world-famous horse ménage directed by Mukhtarbek Kantemirov perform wonders. Well, in the water-tank, there are girls doing synchronised swimming garbed as “goldfish”. By the way, amongst them are some of our Olympic champions in synchronised swimming! Is it any wonder that the circus show Camelot became a real New Year’s hit in Moscow?

9 January 2009

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=rus&q=96893&cid=24&p=09.01.2009

To The Memory of Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter (1930-2008), British 2005 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature

Nobel Laureate in Literature Harold Pinter died in London at the age of 78. Harold Pinter’s widow, Antonia Fraser, said her husband died of cancer on Christmas Eve. She said he was a great personality that will never be forgotten and that it was an honour for her to live with him for 33 years. Harold Pinter was a renowned playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, and poet who wrote 29 stage plays. He was president of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and, in Russia, his dramas became known starting the 1990s due to productions staged by Russian directors.

Harold Pinter was born on 10 October 1930 in the London borough of Hackney and, for a short time, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He began his theatrical career in the mid-1950s as a rep actor and performed on stage for nine years using the stage name David Baron. He toured extensively across the Irish and English provinces, read a lot, and tried his hand at prose and poetry, but, after his first play came out, he went on to write for the stage and earned a name as a screenwriter. This month he was expected to participate in a ceremony to award him an honorary title at the Central School of Speech and Drama, but, he had to decline because of his illness.

Harold Pinter was a fierce critic of the foreign policies of the US and British governments, including the war in Iraq and the bombardment of Afghanistan in 2001. In 2003, he published a collection of poems, The War, in which he condemned the war in Iraq. On 13 October 2005, the Swedish Academy announced that its decision to award the Nobel Prize in Literature for that year to “Harold Pinter… Who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms”. Pinter made a successful career as both a playwright and a screenwriter. One of his best works was the screen version of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, adapted form a novel written by John Fowles.

The death of Harold Pinter is a tremendous loss to British and global culture.

26 December 2008

Vladimir Zhamkin

Editor-in-Chief, VOR English service

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=37308&cid=87&p=26.12.2008