The House of Diaghilev
On the programme:
Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971)
L'Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale)
histoire lue, jouée, et dansée (to be read, played and danced)
Libretto by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1918)
Narrators — the actors of the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater:
Varvara Pavlova
Viktor Bugakov
Performers — the soloists of the musicAeterna orchestra:
Danila Lukianov, clarinet
Olzhas Ashirmatov, bassoon
Nikita Istomin, trumpet
Gerard Costes, trombone
Vadim Teifikov, violin
Carlos Navarro, double bass
Dmitry Klemenok, percussion
Conductor — Dmitry Borodin
18+
"The Soldier's Tale" is a rare example of the synthesis of music and drama theatre in the chamber genre. Seven instrumentalists, reciters and dancers, whose presence Stravinsky himself considered optional, should be in constant interaction on one small stage, while each has to act strictly within the framework of their art form. Interpreting this work is always a challenge for performers.
"The Soldier's Tale" is halfway from the Russian style of Igor Stravinsky's three great ballets ("The Firebird", "Petrushka" and "The Rite of Spring") to his neoclassical masterpieces of the 1920s. In parallel with work on "The Soldier's Tale", Stravinsky was composing "The Wedding", and the folklore intonations of this great ballet are heard not only in the Soldier's violin solos — they permeate the entire score. Meanwhile, the plot, being a collage of Russian fairy tales about a soldier and the devil from the collection of Alexander Afanasiev, served as the basis for a completely international musical collage. Stravinsky ironically sided with American ragtime, then with French waltz, he parodies the Spanish paso doble, then simulates Bach chorale, and references to military brass music of the 19th century connect "The Soldier's Tale" with the opera "The Moor" — the composer's bow towards the "Golden Age" of Russian literature and music.
The author himself explained to Robert Craft: «My original idea was to transpose the period and style of our play to any time and 1918, and to many nationalities and none…. The soldier of the original production was dressed in the uniform of a Swiss army private of 1918, while the costume, and especially the tonsorial apparatus, of the lepidopterist were of the 1830 period. <...> Our soldier in 1918 was very definitely perceived as a victim of the world conflict at the time, despite the neutrality of the plot. "The Soldier's Tale" remains my only theatre piece with reference to the present day».