The scandalous production at the Bolshoi arouses a great deal more controversy than it, possibly, deserves.

Yes, finally we’ve got it! The inevitable has occurred! The very first version of Leonid Desyatnikov’s and Vladimir Sorokin’s notorious opera "Rosental’s Children", the Bolshoi Company’s production, in advance both widely advertised and condemned as an affront to public morals, had its premiere at last. Quite a number of events which the newly born production had inspired, among which there is an inquiry made by some Duma deputies on possible infringements of morals in the libretto, “Going together” rallying in Teatralnaya Square with slogans angrily condemning “Pornographer Sorokin” and the State Duma deputies’ presence at the general rehearsal of the production, heated the atmosphere and stirred the curiosity of the citizens about the production. And obviously, as it happens only too often, the authors had been expected to give a much better (or a much worse?) product. Thus, neither its supporters nor opponents were duly impressed, as the premiere was most unimpressive for both. It turned out to be too dull to make a subject for any scandal whatsoever, still less to buffet the basics of art.

The fact that the libretto doesn’t contain any pornographic scenes had to be admitted even by those deputies of the State Duma who felt most aggressive about the production.

No matter how one feels about Mr. Sorokin’s previous creative works (I am apparently far from the idea of praising them to the skies), in the present libretto there is little of their unappealing and distasteful scabrousness – it admittedly looks quite innocent in comparison with his previous pieces of writing. On the contrary, there’s a lot of elevated language, in the first act especially. As to the plot, it sounds as following: in 1940 an ingenious scientist Rosental invented a way of human cloning, and as he was a music-fan his first brainchildren were the ‘doubles’ of great composers of the past. That was the way Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Verdi and Musorgsky came into this world again…

In act II we see the five geniuses in Moscow, bumming in the Square of Three Railway Stations, one of the Moscow dens of iniquity, their talents completely forgotten in the full swing of ‘perestroika’s turmoil in Russia. Small wonder, a stylistically lower language is heard in some scenes. But if such wording insults someone’s ear, then even the classics like, say, Boris Godunov with its low case dialogues (" Mitukh, Mitukh, what’s the shouting about?), to say nothing of a pretty good heap of operas of ХХ-th century, should be put to question whether they are worth staging at all…

By the way, following the logic of some opponents – politicians – who claim to have found elements of Russophobia in the production, Boris Godunov should be as well withdrawn from the repertoire and banned all together for its most pessimistic Finale, where Yurodivy is grieving amidst “the senseless and ruthless Russian revolt»…

Neither can the production be blamed for the Satanism allegedly observed in the opera by the zealous faultfinders. And as they are, the figures in black that from time to time appear on stage are hardly associated with the Satan; I took them for “ Angels of Death ”, a symbol wildly used to express the ‘finiteness’ of life. If it comes to that, there is much more "blackness" in the original "Faust", where Mefisto walks around the stage all night long singing his couplets, yet the idea to prohibit this world-famous creation by Gounod hasn’t struck anyone so far…

I am afraid the cause of the current turmoil should be looked for somewhere else, outside art. By virtue of some circumstances the story has infringed on the interests of some people who feel more at home with political or economic issues, where PR technologies are inevitable, than with those of modern theatre.

I wonder what the response on the part of the deputies would probably be if they happened to watch some other opera productions already quoted and talked about as ХХ-th century classics, say, an opera by a German composer Berghardt Zimmermann, "Soldiers", which the Bolshoi theatre-goers were privileged to see a few years ago. The plot is the destiny of a regiment prostitute… Or what would they say about one of Shnitke’s operas " Life with an Idiot " based on Victor Erofeev’s story? What the hero – a caricature of Lenin – does on the stage is er…unappetising. This is being kind. But neither when it was on, about a year ago, nor when that really shocking (though, ultimately talented) performance was awarded " Golden Mask " no politicians showed any interest in it. Why?… Because the theatre it was shown at wasn’t in the spotlight… while the atmosphere around the Bolshoi is evidently overheated, each step of its management is put under the microscope. The vital question ‘who will win the tender for the historical building reconstruction’, the chase for the huge sums from the budget, keeps many people outside the theatre walls anxious…

But let me return to the performance. It turned out to be a nice show (I heard that some people shared my opinion) it wasn’t boring a minute, it was funny, to say the least. I think Nikita Mikhalkov is right in his opinion that the production borrows much from “kapustnik”. On the other hand, I don’t think that “kapustnik” is always a poor show. To say nothing of the fact that this genre appeared over a hundred years ago at one of the most serious and decent places – the Moscow ‘Khudozhestvenny’ Theatre (Art Theatre). I liked the music too, on the whole well-done and transparent in terms of intonation. It’s very different from, say, "Voccek" by Alban Berg or "Turn of the Screw" by Benjamin Britten, and much easier for the public to follow. I think that even frequenters of musicals will find some bits to their liking in this opera with its classically-shaped score, stuffed with amusingly stylised Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Musorgsky pieces, coherent arias, тerzettos and quintets. Every small bit of the opera was diligently learnt (an unusual occurrence for a premiere!) by the soloists Elena Voznesenskaya (Tanya), Maksim Paster (Tchaikovsky), Andrey Grigoriev (Verdi), Valeri Guilmanov (Musorgsky), Vadim Linkovsky (Rosental). The orchestra, taught and disciplined by the conductor Alexandr Vedernikov, excelled itself.

The opera is really dramatic in some scenes, for instance, in the scene of Mozart saying farewell (Roman Muravitsky) to his dying brothers and the beloved when he remains alone and is twirling in his fingers a flute – the symbol of his magic gift – which has been accompanying him in the absurd world of modern Russian capitalism…

What I am to say against the production is mostly the drawbacks of its directing and concept – they have turned it into a jest farce despite its tragic plot and moments of gravity. Irony is the predominant motif in the opera. Still, what is to be expected from the postmodernists who are fully convinced that nothing but mocking the things already created by their great predecessors is the only approach to modern art today?… It’s disappointing that the production is overloaded with external details, apparently, symbolical but not always "readable". For instance, I couldn’t make out what the huge thing on the stage shaped either as a TV set or a section of a human belly (designed by Maurius Nyakroshus) meant and no one I turned to for an explanation had the slightest idea of it either. The "josh" crowd scenes with chains of chromosomes running about the stage or prompt-boxes wandering around looked inventive but there was too much of a good thing. Moreover, they were not always connected with the plot as if the designer-co-producer Eimuntas Nyakroshus had been driven by a belated fit of ad diligent schoolboy inspiration to hurl at the spectator everything he could do.

The opinions of the art people divided. A well-known critic Andrey Zolotov, for instance, confessed to the author of these lines that as a phenomenon of theatre art the performance was quite satisfactory and added that he hadn’t expected too much from the composer Desyatnikov whom he described as a ‘stark styliser’. And the well-known violinist and conductor Tatiana Grindenko says about the premiere that ‘there is nothing much to speak of, that is all yesterday’s innovation’, and for a real cultural shock she advises to go to Anatoly Vasiliev’s Theatre where talented people work … However, after such a stern response she added that it was encouraging to see the performance as that meant the company were trying to liven up the dull atmosphere in the Bolshoi, they only would need a better opera next time…

To conclude I would rather add that luckily there weren’t any incidents during the premiere, it went quietly as a whole – the security must have worked professionally. Only once when the action had already started, and the musicians were not playing yet, someone in the public murmured: "Will they ever start the music?" And an irritated female voice a bit too energetically replied: " ‘Sucking together’ – get out of here! ".

Meanwhile, outside, in Teatralnaya Square opponents of "the pornographer and excrement-eater Sorokin" were booing with might and main, but Muscovites had got used to it during the prepremiere week.