Rodion Shchedrin (b. 1932) got his musical education in Moscow Conservatory which he graduated from in 1955. He studied in class of composition under Yu. Shaporin and in class of piano under Ja. Flier. Shchedrin is one of the greatest and most prominent composers of the second half of the 20th – the beginning of the 21st centuries, pianist, USSR People’s Artist, a holder of the USSR and Russian Federation State Prizes, of many honourary titles and awards. He won the title “Best Composer” in the contest “Golden Mask” in 2009. His operas “Not Love Alone”, “Lolita”, “Enchanted Wanderer”, his ballets “The Little Humpbacked Horse”, “Anna Karenina”, concertos and plays for piano, cello, violin, alt, tube, for orchestra are well-known. His Russian liturgy for chorus “The Sealed Angel” is conspicuous with its high spiritual contents. Almost every day his “Carmen Suite” is performed in different parts of the world both in variety shows and on the stage.
Every time an artist turns to Chekhov’s creative life and wants to compose a piece of music it requires the combination of the qualities that rarely occur in one person – an innovator’s courage and responsive carefulness, absolute trust to the writer and keen interest in his enigmatic realm. Within long decades the most essential in Chekhov’s heritage was left beyond Great Music; so not occasionally Shchedrin was the first composer who turned to Chekhov’s’ works. It was his name that is connected with the most outstanding achievements in the musical interpretation of the Russian classics – the ballets “Anna Karenina” and “The Lady with the Dog”, the opera “Dead Souls.”
Alongside with the cruel truth of life, “inner realism” as K. Stanislavsky said, romantic aspiration and eloquent poetry are inherent to the play “Seagull” to the most extent. All this is within power of music. The most subtle movements of soul and the mood that can hardly be depicted by the words are often more important than some concrete cues, or “physical actions” of the characters, and in this respect “Seagull” is a chorographical play to the highest degree.
A great danger was definitely concealed in transforming Chekhov’s drama to the language of music and dance. This is both in a seemed absence of the plot, and in ordinariness, even in unsuitability for the theatre of many characters but the main ones. However, R. Shchedrin and M. Plisetskaya were not eager to find an outer solution – they chose a different way that was shown by K. Stanislavsky some time ago. Stanislavsky wrote, “His (Chekhov’s) plays are very effective though not in their outer development but in the inner one. Chekhov proved best of all that one must understand the development on the stage in its inner sense that was refined of pseudo-scenic elements and that drama works must be built and based solely on it.” Just such an approach defined the general structure and the choice of expressive means of the “dramatic work” by Shchedrin and Plisetskaya – the ballet “Seagull.”
The score of “Seagull” includes 24 Preludes (the main contents of the ballet), three interludes (that remind of the scandal connected with the premiere of Chekhov’s play in St. Petersburg in October 17, 1896) and the postlude.
The preludes are so closely connected with each other, so organically interlinked, so thoughtfully contrasted that they make up one completed musical work which needs no comment. Rodion Shchedrin’s ballet is a musical interpretation of Chekhov’s “Seagull” that was up to the scale of really symphonic drama. This is an exciting work full of belief in life and in the power of art, of high romanticism and tragic pathos.
Cast of characters: Seagull, Nina Zarechnaya (one actress). Konstantin Treplev. Trigorin. Arkadina. Masha. Sorin. Medvedenko, a teacher. Dorn, a doctor. Polina Andreevna. Shamraev, Sorin’s estate caretaker. Jacob, a farmhand. A cook. A maid. Extras
ACT I
The scene is set in the park of Sorin’s estate. It is evening and a seagull is flying across the lake in the distance. Here is a lonely elm tree and Treplev is near it. The other inhabitants of the estate are coming out – Sorin, Masha, Doctor Dorn, teacher Medvedenko, Shamraev, Polina Andreevna, farmhand Jacob, the cook, the maid. “What can be more boring that this charming countryside boredom… Nobody does anything, everybody is philosophical…”
Nina Zarechnaya enters. Treplev meets her with joy, kisses her hands: “I love you… You are a fairy, my dream…” Nina is excited: “I long to go to the lake as if I were a seagull. My heart is full with you.” Nina and Treplev leave.
Masha who is desperately in love with Treplev sees their declaration of love. “I suffer. Nobody, none knows about my suffering! I love Konstantin…” Medvedenko suffers from Masha’s indifference; Polina Andreevna – from Dorn’s coldness. “How nervous is everybody! And so much love there is… Oh, such a magic lake…”
There appear Arkadina and Trigorin. They come to see an amateur performance – Treplev’s play Nina Zarechnaya will take part. Everybody take seats on the benches near the wooden staging. The curtain is being raised slowly. The performance begins…
Interlude
The announcement of the premier of Chekhov’s comedy “Seagull” in the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg; this is Mrs. Levkeev’s benefit performance. The people are in a hurry to get to the premiere on time, there is much fuss.
The notice reads: Zarechnaya – V. Komissarghevskaya; Treplev – R. Apollonsky; Trigorin – N. Sazonpov; Arkadina – A. Dughikova; Masha – M. Chitau; Sorin – V. Davidov; Shamraev – K. Varlamov; Medvedenko – V. Panchin; 1st director – E. Karpov
The scenery of the amateur performance – Treplev’s play is a complete failure. There are cries “The play is over! It’s enough! The curtain down!”
The spectators are leaving, Arkadina introduces Zarechnaya to Trigorin. He looks at Nina with interest who in her turn gazes at him with rapture and veneration.
“Why have I heard sadness in this pure soul’s appeal and my heart was so painfully wrung?”
Nina leaves hastily. Trigorin intently follows her with his eyes. Masha is eager to console Trigorin. He gets irritated “Leave me alone! Leave me! Don’t follow me!”
Treplev stays alone. There is an explosion of desperation and self-humiliation. “I am unhappy… You didn’t like my play, you despise my inspiration, and you consider me worthless; there are a lot of such …”
A bright sunny afternoon. Arkadina, Trigorin, Zarechnaya, Masha and Dorn are playing in croquet.
Jacob calls everybody for dinner. Nina stays alone with her dreams about love, fame and theatrical career. “I could bear my kin’s detest, poverty, disappointment for the happiness of being a writer or an actress; I would live under the roof, eat only rye bread, suffer from self- dissatisfaction, from self-imperfection but I would demand fame… genuine, sensational fame…I am dizzy… Ouch!”
Treplev enters with a killed seagull: “I was mean to have killed this seagull. I am putting it by your feet.” Nina is patting the seagull. “Soon I will kill myself in the same way!” Trigorin comes back. Arkadina and Masha follow him. Everybody gradually “gets into the whirlpool” of anxiety and worry – “everyone loves but is not loved.”
Interlude
On October 17, 1896 Chekhov’s “Seagull” was a complete failure in Alexandrinsky Theatre. The play was catcalled.
Arkadina and Trigorin are leaving from Sorin’s estate. The household servants are carrying the luggage. Trigorin comes back and runs into Zarechnaya. Nina presents him with a locket “We are parting... I beg you to take this little locket as a keepsake from me…If you ever need my life come and take it…” Trigorin is excited by Nina’s confession. “Stay in Slavjansky Bazaar … Let me know… Molchanovka, Grokholsky’s apartments… You are so beautiful… Oh, it is such happiness to think that soon we will see each other!” Nina bends her head on his chest. Treplev sees them.
ACT II
Two years have passed. The action takes place near the lake on an autumn rainy evening. A wounded seagull is flying in the distance.
In the garden Konstantin Treplev is near the old tumbledown staging. The other inhabitants of the estate are appearing – Masha, Shamraev, Polina Andreevna, Jacob, the cook, the maid; Dorn and Medvedenko are pushing a wheelchair where Sorin wrapped in the rug is sitting.
Arkadina and Trigorin enter – they came to visit sick Sorin. Polina Andreevna lights the candles. The lamp is going down and they start playing lotto. “When the boring long autumn evenings come, lotto is played here… The game is boring but when one gets used to, it is fine.”
Interlude
There is destructive criticism of Chekhov’s “Seagull.” The play is censured on the pages of St. Petersburg newspapers, in small talk, in the palours: “The Exchange News” – “It is confused and wild”; “St. Petersburg Gazette” – “It is a decadence fatigue”; “Petersburg Leaflet” – “Nonsense in persons”; “The New Time” – “It winnowed with boredom and falseness. There was little action in the play.”
Treplev is alone in his study. It is raining and the wind is raging outside. Treplev is full of premonition of meeting Nina. A train of recollections come to him: a hovering seagull, the first meeting with Nina Zarechnaya, the failure of his play in the home show, the meeting of Trigorin and Nina…
There is a knock at the window. Nina Zarechnaya appears but she is lifeless, drooped, dimmed. “Nina! Nina! It is you… you… I have been in this premonition all this day; my soul has been in the terrible agony.” Nina breaks into sobbing bending her head on Treplev’s chest: “Let me have a look at you. You are a writer, I am an actress… We have got into a whirlpool…” Treplev passionately makes a declaration of his love: “I cannot stop loving you, Nina… I have been calling you, I have been kissing the soil you trod …” However, Nina is cold and unreciprocated. “I am a seagull. Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw and killed for want of anything better to do… This is the subject for a short story… I love … Trigorin. Now I love him even more than earlier… I love, love him passionately, being driven to despair… ”
Nina embraces Treplev impetuously and leaves. Treplev stays alone.
There is a scene of lotto playing again.
A shot rings. Treplev is slowly falling down…
A dim lonely lantern is sadly rocking… A seagull is flying in the distance as a symbol of an eternal troubled flight, a breakthrough, creative uneasiness, movement, faith in future.
The postlude rings.
