2025 is declared the Year of the Defender of the Fatherland by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation and it will also be dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
As part of the project “Russian operas in the Astrakhan Kremlin”, the Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theatre plans to turn to the opera War and Peace by S.S. Prokofiev.
War and Peace is a grandiose historical canvas, which shows 7 pictures of “peace” and 6 pictures of “war”. The opera was based on the novel of the same name by L.N. Tolstoy in 1943 and was the most important work of the war period. Prokofiev was creating this opera over twelve long years; it is divided into thirteen lyrical and dramatic scenes, and consists of two parts; the number of characters exceeds seventy people, not counting secondary characters and the chorus.
In the ingenious epic War and Peace by L. N. Tolstoy various pictures of the life of high society and the people during the period when the historical fate of Russia was being decided are presented. The performance will show a truthful disclosure of the spiritual drama of the characters in combination with pictures of everyday life, as well as historical events that played a huge role in the life of the Russian people.
The production of the Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theater is the director's work of Sergei Novikov. Historical costumes by Olga Polikarpova and stage design by Ivan Skladchikov are meticulously made according to drawings of the 19th century; the scenery will present the interiors of aristocratic mansions and battle scenes. The grandiose scenery in some episodes comes to life, forming a multilayer picture, in other episodes it serves as a kind of monument to the era, reminding us of the scale of the events taking place.
“We realize that the scale of this opera implies monumental scenery and rich historical costumes, and if we implement everything that we have planned, it will be our great victory “in the fight” with such a grand canvas,” said Conductor Director Valery Voronin.
“We want to bring maximum graphics and picturesqueness to this production, lest it should look like a photograph”, said Production Designer Ivan Skladchikov.
Sergei Prokofiev's opera War and Peace was received positively. The artistic result of the performance can be most briefly expressed by the words “triumph of music”.
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