Dead Souls

Мёртвые души

November 23 – watch the live broadcast of the revived performance of Dead Souls in the picturesque traditional production by the outstanding Soviet theatre director Boris Pokrovsky and the People's Artist of the USSR Valery Leventhal. Music Director and Conductor – Valery Gergiev.

As part of the large-scale music festival "Maya and Rodion", dedicated to the memory of the outstanding composer and the legendary ballerina.

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Actors

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov

Nozdryov

Korobochka

Sobakevich

Plushkin

Manilov

Featuring the folk ensemble "Komon"

Crew

Music director and conductor

Valery Gergiev

Conductor

Anton Grishanin

Stage Director

Boris Pokrovskiy

Stage design

Valery Leventhal

Costume designer

Vilyam Klementyev

Choreography

Dmitriy Bryantsev

Staging Recreated by

Ksenia Shostakovich

Set Reproduction Designer

Alyona Pikalova

Costume Reproduction Designers

Elena Merkurova, Tatyana Artamonova

Lighting designer

Sergey Shevchenko

Video designer

Ekaterina Karnaukhova

Chorus Master

Valeriy Borisov

About

Rodion Shchedrin was the first Russian composer to turn to Nikolai Gogol's unfinished poem, calling it his favorite book. "Dead Souls is a poem about the Russian people, a declaration of love for them, a faith in their wisdom and kind-heartedness. I wanted to use the means of music to read Gogol's 'singing prose,' to outline the national character through music, and likewise through music to emphasize the infinite expressiveness, vitality, and flexibility of our native language," the composer noted.

Gogol's poem, already imbued with music, found its voice in Shchedrin's opera through characteristic and concise vocal images, and through memorable and recognizable orchestral timbres. Extremely difficult to perform, the score contains 32 solo parts and two choruses, one of which replaces the violin parts in the orchestra.

The main conflict of the opera lies in the juxtaposition of the cruel world of merchants with the world of folk existence, filled with spiritual simplicity and poetry. In the sounds of the authentic song "Ne bely snegi" ("The Snows Are Not White")—a broad and soul-stirring melody—one can hear a faith in the living soul of the people, in the inexhaustibility of its creative force.