Moscow, Cheryomushki
Encyclopedia
Moscow, Cheryomushki is an operetta
in three acts by Dmitri Shostakovich
, his Op. 105. It is sometimes referred to as simply Cheryomushki. Cheryomushki
is a district in Moscow full of cheap subsidized housing built in 1956, and the word is also commonly used for such housing projects in general.
The libretto was written by the experienced team of Vladimir Mass and Mikhail Chervinsky, leading Soviet humorists of the day. The satirical plot dealt with a topical theme geared to one of the most pressing concerns of urban Russians, the chronic housing shortages and the difficulties of securing livable conditions. Cheryomushki translates to “bird-cherry trees” and the operetta was named after a real housing estate in southwest Moscow.
The work was completed in 1958 and received its premiere in the capital on 24 January 1959. The operetta is reminiscent of Shostakovich’s popular music of the period, yet at the same time it engages a satirical assessment of the housing redevelopments in Moscow.
Cheryomushki belongs in this category of works. While the light idiom lent the operetta some initial success, the ailing work soon became forgotten in the Soviet operetta repertoire. For a long time the work remained unknown in the West, and this is partially linked to the decline of the operetta form in the post-war years, and the emergence of newer genres such as the musical
. Yet perhaps its short commercial shelf life was not unexpected, given that the operetta was regarded as a work of light entertainment, and with that its emphasis on contemporary social issues and popular culture references.
The operetta tells the story of a group of friends and acquaintances who have been granted new apartments in this residential development. The different aspects of the housing problem are represented by each of the many characters.
, and on 17 December 2004 at the Opéra Nouvel of Lyon
.
In the closing scene, Boris attempts to exploit a previous liaison with Vava by making love to her when he knows Drebednov will see them, thus undermining their affair. However, his underhand plot is dismissed by his idealistic friends, who seek a less realistic solution. Liusia helps the tenants create a magic garden, complete with a bench, where bureaucrats are not heard and only the truth is told. Consequently, Drebednov and Barabashkin confess their crimes and are vanquished. They all live happily ever after.
undertook to make a film version directed by Gerbert Rappaport. The production featured additional music by Shostakovich and was released in the following year, under the shorter title Cheryomushki.
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
in three acts by Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, his Op. 105. It is sometimes referred to as simply Cheryomushki. Cheryomushki
Cheryomushki District
Cheryomushki is a district of South-Western Administrative Okrug of Moscow, Russia. District's population: The district is delimited by Nakhimovsky Prospekt , Obrucheva Street , Sevastopolsky Prospekt , Profsoyuznaya Street, and Vlasova Street . The district is mostly residential, with an...
is a district in Moscow full of cheap subsidized housing built in 1956, and the word is also commonly used for such housing projects in general.
The libretto was written by the experienced team of Vladimir Mass and Mikhail Chervinsky, leading Soviet humorists of the day. The satirical plot dealt with a topical theme geared to one of the most pressing concerns of urban Russians, the chronic housing shortages and the difficulties of securing livable conditions. Cheryomushki translates to “bird-cherry trees” and the operetta was named after a real housing estate in southwest Moscow.
The work was completed in 1958 and received its premiere in the capital on 24 January 1959. The operetta is reminiscent of Shostakovich’s popular music of the period, yet at the same time it engages a satirical assessment of the housing redevelopments in Moscow.
Composition history
In a musical career which spans half a century, Shostakovich engrossed himself with a staggeringly diverse range of genres and styles. Beyond the fifteen symphonies and fifteen string quartets, the lesser-known works of Shostakovich offer intrigue and interest likewise. With the reappraisal of Shostakovich in recent times, this category of light music is beginning to enjoy unprecedented popularity within concert halls and record catalogues.Cheryomushki belongs in this category of works. While the light idiom lent the operetta some initial success, the ailing work soon became forgotten in the Soviet operetta repertoire. For a long time the work remained unknown in the West, and this is partially linked to the decline of the operetta form in the post-war years, and the emergence of newer genres such as the musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
. Yet perhaps its short commercial shelf life was not unexpected, given that the operetta was regarded as a work of light entertainment, and with that its emphasis on contemporary social issues and popular culture references.
The operetta tells the story of a group of friends and acquaintances who have been granted new apartments in this residential development. The different aspects of the housing problem are represented by each of the many characters.
- Sasha, after his recent marriage to Masha, finds that the young couple cannot live together as they have no home. Sasha shares a communal apartment with one of his fellow museum guides, Lidochka and her father, Semyon Semyonovich, while, on the other side of town, Masha shares a room in a temporary hostel.
- Boris is an explosives expert, who sought to settle in Moscow having worked in many parts of the Soviet Union. In the opening of the operetta, Boris encounters an old acquaintance, Sergei, who works as a chauffeur for a high-ranking official. Sergei meets and falls in love with Liusia, a young alluring construction worker from the Cheryomushki site.
- The seven “good” characters are unsurprisingly confronted by enemies with conflicting interests. Fyodor Drebednev is an obnoxious bureaucrat who is responsible for the building of the Cheryomushki estate and the allocation of the apartments. Drebednov has been married three times, but now has a new partner, Vava, a Machiavellian young woman who uses her affair as a means of acquiring a new apartment. Barabashkin is the lower-rank estate manager, who is likewise corrupt as his superior, Drebednov.
Performance history
Moscow, Cheryomushki received its premiere on 24 January 1959 at the Mayakovsky Operetta Theatre under Grigori Stolyarov. It was revived on 8 February 2004 at the Grand Théâtre de GenèveGrand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève is an opera house in Geneva, Switzerland.As with many other opera houses, the Grand Théâtre de Genève is both a venue and an institution. The venue is a majestic building, towering over Place Neuve, officially opened in 1876, partly destroyed by fire in 1951 and reopened in...
, and on 17 December 2004 at the Opéra Nouvel of Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 24 January 1959 (Conductor: Grigori Stolyarov) |
|---|---|---|
| Sasha, a guide at the Museum of the History and Reconstruction of Moscow | baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or... |
|
| Masha, Sasha's wife | mezzo-soprano | |
| Lidochka, a fellow museum guide of Sasha's | soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody... |
|
| Semyon Semyonovich, Lidochka's father | bass | |
| Boris, an explosives expert | tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... |
|
| Sergei, works as a chauffeur for a high-ranking official and an old acquaintance of Boris | tenor | |
| Liusia, a young and alluring construction worker from the Cheryomushki site | soprano | |
| Fyodor Drebednev, a bureaucrat who works at the Cheryomushki construction site and who allocates apartments | tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... |
|
| Vava, having an affair with Drebednev | soprano | |
| Barabashkin, a lower-rank estate manager | baritone | |
Act 1
The old house where Sasha, Lidochka and her father lived subsides. Consequently Sasha and his wife Masha, as well as Lidochka and her father, are granted newly-built apartments in Cheryomushki. The group are driven to the estate by Sergei, who knows Cheryomushki since his on-off girlfriend Liusia worked there, and by Boris, who has fallen in love with Lidochka. Unfortunately, when they arrive, the estate manager Barabashkin is unwilling to hand over the keys, restricting access to many of the apartments.Act 2
Since Barabashkin will not give up the keys, Boris cunningly uses the construction crane to lift Lidochka and her father into their new apartment through their window. While they are settling in to their new home, Drebednov and Barabashkin abruptly burst through a hole in the wall from the adjacent flat. The new occupants are ejected, but Barabashkin’s intentions are uncovered. He has refused to give Lidochka and her father the keys in order that Drebednov, who allocated the adjacent apartment to his girlfriend, could please her by illegally taking two apartments and joining them together to make more luxurious accommodation. By doing this, the old lecher tried to ensure Vava’s continuing devotion. After the corruption of Drebednov is revealed, Sasha and Masha hold a housewarming party at their flat, where the good characters agree to defeat Drebednov and Barabashkin.In the closing scene, Boris attempts to exploit a previous liaison with Vava by making love to her when he knows Drebednov will see them, thus undermining their affair. However, his underhand plot is dismissed by his idealistic friends, who seek a less realistic solution. Liusia helps the tenants create a magic garden, complete with a bench, where bureaucrats are not heard and only the truth is told. Consequently, Drebednov and Barabashkin confess their crimes and are vanquished. They all live happily ever after.
Reception
For this satirical but light-hearted take on contemporary living in the Soviet Union, Shostakovich conceived one of his longest compositions. With an epic score running over one hundred minutes without dialogue, Cheryomushki covers a bewildering variation of styles, from pieces of the Romantic idiom to the most vulgar popular songs. Shostakovich himself was one of the work’s first critics, and he became deeply disillusioned and embarrassed with its crudity. Just days before the piece’s premiere in the Moscow Operetta Theatre, he wrote to his acquaintance Isaak Glikman:- I am behaving very properly and attending rehearsals of my operetta. I am burning with shame. If you have any thoughts of coming to the first night, I advise you to think again. It is not worth spending time to feast your eyes and ears on my disgrace. Boring, unimaginative, stupid. This is, in confidence, all I have to tell you.
Quotation
- Moscow , Cheryomushki is perhaps one of the most revealing examples of Shostakovich’s enduring compositional fascination with parody, referencing and quotation. In the first fantasy sequence, Shostakovich parodies the choreographed style of classical balletBalletBallet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, with an imitation of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty. Here the newly married couple, Sasha and Masha, fantasise of the apartment where they will one day live. An elegant dance is initiated by the romantic hero and heroine, but before long they are joined on the stage by Soviet domestic items which they desire- furniture, a modern fridge and a vase. In a moment of light-hearted absurdity, these objects also begin to dance.
- Soviet ethnomusicologists have long asserted that Cheryomushki is abundant with intonations of popular Soviet material. In the second fantasy scene, “Lidochka and Boris’s Duet”, Shostakovich parodies the nationalist aesthetics of the Mighty Handful. This is the scene in which the infatuated Boris smuggles Lidochka into her apartment on the crane. With its mock medieval melody, the parallel fifths in the bass line and the use of a horn solo, the orchestral introduction recalls a retrospective style, reminiscent of Yaroslavna’s ariosoAriosoIn classical music, arioso is a style of solo opera singing between recitative and aria. Literally, arioso means airy. The term arose in the 16th century along with the aforementioned styles and monody. It is commonly confused with recitativo accompagnato....
from BorodinBorodinBorodin , or Borodina is a Russian last name and may refer to:*Alexander Borodin , Russian composer and chemist*Alexander Parfeniyevich Borodin, Russian scientist in the field of rail transport...
’s opera Prince IgorPrince IgorPrince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...
or the first bars of the “bardic” slow movement from BorodinBorodinBorodin , or Borodina is a Russian last name and may refer to:*Alexander Borodin , Russian composer and chemist*Alexander Parfeniyevich Borodin, Russian scientist in the field of rail transport...
’s 2nd Symphony. For the Soviet audiences, the intonation of popular styles would have been immediately recognisable.
Screen adaptation
In 1961, LenfilmLenfilm
Kinostudiya "Lenfilm" is a production unit of the Russian film industry, with its own film studio, located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, formerly Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R. Today OAO "Kinostudiya Lenfilm" is a corporation with its stakes shared between private owners, and several private film studios,...
undertook to make a film version directed by Gerbert Rappaport. The production featured additional music by Shostakovich and was released in the following year, under the shorter title Cheryomushki.