“Several meetings with the late...”

A festival commemorating the 250th anniversary of the birth of the great Austrian composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was held at the National Philharmonic on Jan. 25-27. It began with the literary-musical composition Face to Face with Mozart, staged by Iryna Nesterenko and based on the historical essay “Several Meetings with the Late Mr. Mozart” by the Russian playwright Edward Radzinsky.

“This year is passing under the sign of Mozart all over the world,” says Volodymyr Lukashov, artistic director of the festival, adding, “The National Philharmonic is also commemorating this date. Without competing with the National Opera in presenting the composer’s creative heritage, we went even further and organized the festival Moz Art Fest “Ave Verum.” It opened with the original production Face to Face with Mozart, which is a symphony for actors and an orchestra. We converted Radzinsky’s essay into a somewhat different genre; we combined literature, drama, a symphony orchestra, the Dumka Choir, which performs the “Caprimosa” (during the scene of Mozart’s death), and invited four excellent actors from the Russian Drama Theater and the Ivan Franko Theater. The cast includes Mykola Rushkovsky (the composer’s father Leopold Mozart), Oleh Trepovsky (Baron Gottfried van Swieten), Natalia Shevchenko (Constance), and Oleksiy Bohdanovych (Antonio Salieri). The narrator is none other than Edward Radzinsky, who came especially from Moscow to take part in the festival.

This performance is a remarkable blend of historical documents, creative fantasy, and Radzinsky’s conjectures. For an hour and a half the audience closely follows the story of the genius’s life. Mozart died at 36 and was buried in a common pauper’s grave, bequeathing to the world a priceless treasury of music. Did Salieri poison Mozart or is this just another legend? Why did both musicians speak ill of each other? Why did Salieri, a court conductor who taught princesses, and who was also a noted composer and professor, have a condescending attitude to Mozart (“Mozart is light, sophisticated, graceful, but not serious”)? Indeed, a number of his contemporaries and colleagues believed that Mozart could not write anything global and serious.

The setting is the composer’s apartment on the day of his death. Radzinsky came up with an interesting literary approach, relying on “documentary material” — Baron Gottfried van Swieten’s diary. The baron was the son of the physician to Queen Maria Theresa, a diplomat who was versed in music and wrote 11 symphonies. He supported the composer’s family financially and was the anonymous individual who commissioned Mozart to write a requiem, which became the maestro’s final work.

After the rehearsal Radzinsky admitted that he likes the Kyiv stage version of his essay. Many directors have tried to stage it, and each time something prevented the project from being realized. “Several Meetings” was specially commissioned by Radio Italy in the late 1990s. Since then the essay has been translated into many languages. Radzinsky is often asked whether the diaries actually exist and who Pianist N is. (To learn whether Radzinsky revealed the secret and to find out about his discoveries, hypotheses, and views on the past and future, look for these articles in upcoming issues of The Day.)

Credit for the idea to stage this performance belongs to Mykola Diadiura, conductor of the National Philharmonic Orchestra. He invited Radzinsky to come to Kyiv and act as the author during the premiere. He also selected the music for the production, not an easy task, as Mozart wrote 600 compositions in a variety of genres. Diadiura admitted that he rejected fragments and quotations in favor of performing whole works with the orchestra. The producers assured us that from now on the play will be part of the Philharmonic Orchestra’s repertoire. Those who missed the literary-musical composition will be able to see it in March (but without Radzinsky). The Russian playwright has promised to visit Kyiv again on Dec. 5, the date of Mozart’s death, and repeat the performance with the same cast.