Kontinent Media Attended Operetta “Moscow, Cheryomushki”

April 2012. Kontinent Media attended operetta “Moscow, Cheryomushki” at the Chicago Opera Theater at Harris Theater for Music and Dance. The original music score for the operetta was written by Dmitri Shostakovich, with libretto by well-known Soviet playwrights Vladimir Mass and Mikhail Chervinski. (V. Mass used to work at Meyerhold’s theater, and was a co-author of very popular movie “Jolly Fellows” (“Veselye Rebyata”), on which set he was arrested and spent three years in Gulag.) The original "Moskva, Cheryomushki" premiered at Moscow Operetta Theatre in 1959, in the midst of Nikita Khruschev’s reign and reforms. Outside of the Soviet Union this operetta became popular not so long ago, after conductor Gennady Rozhdestvenski has made a full record of it at a British company.

The main musical theme of the operetta was taken by Shostakovich from the movie "Golden Mountains” (“Zlatye Gory”), which was said to be the favorite movie of Josef Stalin. It is known that Shostakovich simultaneously worked on "Moskva, Cheryomushki" and his “Eleventh Symphony”, two absolutely different pieces, while suffering from a personal crisis and isolation, after the death of his wife. During the same years, Shostakovich had become a member of Communist party, disappointing some of his friends, and had proceeded to become a Supreme Council Deputy, in which role he had a great exposure to many people’s complaints on their living conditions, complaints that they addressed looking up to him as a Deputy, in the hopes that he could help them using his newly-acquired power.

That was the background of times and of the intertwined circumstances, when "Moskva, Cheryomushki" came into being. Several young couples struggle to get the new apartments in the newly-built standardized five-story house, and the ensuing comedy of errors, dreams, romances, and reality engulfs them all. That is on the surface of the plot, and Shostakovich himself was not at all thrilled by the simplicity of it, at least not at first. It is remarkable, that many reviewers, throughout the decades and up until now, have also mostly focused on the music, of course being written by the genius composer, and only addressed the libretto as something on the side, as perhaps a gentle satire on the housing situation and on bureaucratic affairs in the Communist state, something to laugh off, to be sure. We find it amazing, that the whole layer of quite transparent underlying metaphors and undertones of building up ones’ lives and facing the eternal destiny-creating choices, individually and collectively, while looking for a space and time where to be, would often seem to be hardly mentioned at all, escaping the attention of the audiences, apparently being covered by the unstoppable comedy and the merry-go-around. The Chicago production of “Cheryomushki” has achieved a deeper balance between the comedy and subtle drama of individual and collective longings within the spirit of the music. More on that later.

The Chicago premiere has used the skilful orchestration by Chicago Symphony artistic adviser and a Shostakovich specialist Gerard McBurney, as the original Shostakovich’s score is only possible to implement with the full orchestra of a big opera house (as was the case at the time with state-supported Moscow main music theatres). Young and energetic director Mike Donahue and music director Alexander Platt have created a wonderfully flowing experience, fulfilling all senses, with set and costume design by Anya Klepikov, light design by Julian Pike, and complete with choreography pieces by Eric Sean Fogel. The careful adaptation of the libretto by Meg Miroshnik has allowed for preservation of authentic moments, creating an atmosphere of a faraway-land spectacle, while allowing the audience a chance to relate to it intimately.

The warm and deep soprano of Sophie Gordeladze, who had a debut on the Chicago scene, has transcended the stage and the house, and her role as a “crane operator” perhaps has also helped obtain a literally high physical point from which to focus and to radiate the very energy of the “collective spirit” of the play. At times it seemed that certain very authentic words and sounds are as dear to her as the music and singing, and as she announced the very name of the operetta, Cheryomushki, it had a quality of a revelation on it’s own. All of the actors and singers have individually and together created the web of the light-hearted musical intrigue, as have already been acclaimed by many.

As a piece of background, the satire aspect and the housing problems that sort of fill a layer in the plot, it is all there of course, however, one has to put it in perspective. The modern viewers have to remind themselves, that we are talking about 1959, more than a half a century ago. This was only more than a decade after the world war that devastated Europe and Soviet Union especially, where in many cities there were mostly ruins remained standing. The wounds had only began to heal, one can compare the time distance to that from the 9/11 and up until now - although the scale of devastation was yet infinitely greater. So indeed, when the generation of our parents in the late 50ths and 60ths became able to live in the separate and decent apartments (that later acquired the funny nickname “Khruscheby”), and to move out of communal housing, the satire was decidedly not as big on their agenda, save that for the more recent and familiar “stagnation” era. And in addition, although people had always enjoyed some irony about the “collective will” (M.M. Zoschenko comes to mind, writing in 1930ths), at the then recent time of the great war, that Soviet people had won collectively defeating the Nazis, that very collective spirit was still a somewhat more practical concept.

And the times are indeed ever-present in the operetta! Would it be possible to overlook the big street clock on stage all the time? The times of their lives are changing rapidly for these young couples who are trying to figure what is it that they can do with their lives, and where can they do that, and whether they could, or should wait longer looking for what is important to them. Director Mike Donahue notes that Meg Miroshnik’s libretto adaptation emphasizes the connection between the need for love and the need for housing. He also goes on to point out that Anya Klepikov’s design locates the story in the construction site, as in a place of growth and transformation.

Smart, funny, but touched by skepticism guy Boris (Paul LaRosa, baritone) does not make it a secret pretty much from the beginning, that it is not all just about housing and bureaucracy problems - he says he is looking for a place where he could just be. A place within himself one might add, or with the other closer person, where he could be free from the torment between his strive for love, and skepticism and disappointment, that is sending him in the pursuit of a “woman with an apartment”. He, too, like the audience, is visibly besieged by the dilemma, how to see his own life - as a pursuit of love or as a cynical satire… He shows himself as a young man of strength and dignity as he continues to struggle between the two opposites. Despite his cynicism, he seems to know his strength and capacity to change things decisively. As in a good theater, little details are not left to chance, as they reveal the seriousness of his character, even without interrupting the comedy flow. “I am an explosive expert myself!”, he states with comical zeal and pride at the same time. We follow his struggles the entire play, luckily for the audiences, eased by the jokes and role reversals.

Boris’ counterpart, Lidochka (Sara Heaton, soprano) has life decisions to make of her own. She works as a museum guide, and answering Boris’ question what kind of men does she like, she says - 300 year old ones. Like Boris, she is in her own way in doubts, trying to find what is real, and what can only be a dream. Perhaps, that is what unites them, despite the differences. Through mutual uncertainty, and comedy of errors, Lidochka wonders, “Is this all that could be? And is this all that must be?..”

The magic and fantasy propels the lives of the heroes, culminating in a fantasy ballet superbly performed by dancers Nebi Berhane, Jennifer Goodman, Craig Kaufman, Todd Rhoades and Teanna Zarro, as choreographed by Eric Sean Fogel. And in contrast, one character in the plot remains rather “under-appreciated”… It is of course Barabashkin, the super of the house (Paul Corona, bass-baritone). In the best traditions, he plays a kind of a clown, somebody who everyone laughs at, when not plainly ignoring or minimizing, while it is in fact he who drives the entire show, having the key for everyone’s wish-fulfillment and happiness.

The lives of these several young couples intertwine as they search for a place for themselves, both literally and in any other sense of the word, and we see that where one of them drops the ball, the other picks up. When Boris is given to his bitterness and ready to be rude to Lidochka, his friend Sergei (Dominick Armstrong, tenor) is there to remind him of himself. Through everybody’s interconnected ups and downs, we see that at least for the operetta, the people’s will, as uplifted by the rich collective spirit of popular folk melodies, and towards the end by the all-sounds-uniting Russian folk chorus, indeed works pretty well! It is not just a happy ending at last, a type of a Communist utopia, as it would be hard to expect anything less within the genre. The audience, like the operetta characters, is presented with a choice of the ever-present eternal questions, the choice that is easily overlooked and then, is harder to deny. Should the operetta indeed be seen as a nice satire for the most part? Is this all that could be? What is to be born out of the spirit of music? And then, is this all that could be for one’s own life, as well? Lidochka overcomes her doubts and gains her strength in finding what she was looking for, as she conjures up her destiny, “It can, It should, It will!”

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S. Telis, Kontinent Media
Images courtesy of Chicago Opera Theater