TSAREVICH (CONCERT PERFORMANCE)

As part of the XXIV International Winter Festival "Arts Square"

On December 24, the Musical Comedy Theatre will present the first performance from a new project: Franz Lehár's operetta "Tsarevich" in a concert performance.

Continuing the line of introducing viewers to little-known works of the world anthology of the operetta genre, the theatre will perform one of the late works of the outstanding Austrian composer. Like Lehár's "Land of Smiles", which was previously performed on the stage of the Musical Comedy Theatre, this operetta is also characterized by a dramatic finale that is atypical for the genre, and in terms of musical style it is as close as possible to an opera.

Franz Lehár (1870-1948) is one of the greatest composers in the operetta genre, along with such greats as Jacques Offenbach and Johann Strauss. Modern researchers of his work believe that Lehár has neither direct predecessors nor successors. Among the many musicians who highly valued Lehár's talent were such outstanding composers as Giacomo Puccini, Sergei Rachmaninov, Alexander Glazunov, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg... The famous Austrian librettist Paul Knepler's phrase became famous: "There are three types of theatrical and dramatic music - opera, operetta and Lehár".

"Tsarevich" is an operetta in three acts based on the libretto by Bela Jenbach and Heinz Reichert based on the play of the same name by the Polish writer Gabriela Zapolska. This play was chosen by Lehár on the advice of his wife, who saw its production in 1917 at the Vienna Dramatic Theater (it should be noted that the content of neither the play nor the operetta has any relation to Russian history - it is a complete fabrication).

The operetta premiered in Berlin on February 16, 1927, at the German Art Theater, and was an incredible success thanks to the performance of the title role by the outstanding vocalist Richard Tauber. It soon spread across the stages of many musical theaters in Europe and was repeatedly filmed. According to the plot, Alexei, the young son of the Russian Tsar and heir to the throne, shows complete indifference to state affairs and social problems. He is prone to melancholy, loves solitude, avoids the company of women, avoiding them, preferring the theater and horse racing. The imperial family is worried about the future of the dynasty and decides to organize a masquerade ball in the palace, at which Alexei meets a disguised dancer, Sonya, and falls in love with her. But the lovers cannot be happy in their homeland, where a dynastic union awaits the heir, and then they decide to flee...

As part of the concert performance of the operetta, the soloists of the troupe, accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Honored Artist of Russia Andrei Alekseev, will present the most striking numbers from "Tsarevich".

Director – Oksana Antonenko
Musical director and conductor – Andrey Alekseev
Assistant conductor – Allayar Latypov
Artist – Irina Dolgova
Lighting designer - Andrey Kotov
Responsible accompanist – Mikhail Efremov