A singing general

Vlad Troitsky learned long ago to surprise and stir up audiences and theater critics because he always works in a big way, with due account of the world theatrical market. There are many examples of this: Ukraine’s only actual art festival GogolFest, a well-hyped ethno house group DakhaBrakha which has already trotted half the globe, and a relatively recent project of the very promising freak cabaret DakhDaughters. One of the latest theatrical projects, Vii, after a novella by Nikolai Gogol, was carried out together with the Swiss theater Vidy Lausanne (Troitsky in fact put on a play on Ukraine’s integration into Europe – the stage showed a long ritual of the initiation of the foreigners who chose to visit friends and suddenly discovered a pristine world undefiled by civilization).

Music, usually performed by the DakhaBrakha, is always a key component in Troitsky’s productions. And it is not just a soundtrack. The infernal vocal timbres of a quartet and outlandish sounds of ancient instruments have always created the atmosphere of a certain rite, a strange and half-mystical action.

So, it is only natural that Troitsky decided to launch a project, New Opera, and begin with Shakespeare’s bleak chronicle Coriolanus. A classical plot wins over the audience with topical allusions: political intrigues and a people’s revolt in the focus of which is the Roman ruler Gaius Marcius Coriolanus. Explaining his choice, the producer mentions “the Verkhovna Rada corridors” that resemble a serpentarium. But it is easy to see an episode of Troitsky’s own life in this Shakespearean plot (a recent conflict with the Municipal Opera staff, as a result of which he had to quit). But, obviously, his desire to work with the operatic genre still remains. Yet the producer rejects classical patterns. In the Coriolanus production, Troitsky promises a chimerical mixture of the timbres of acoustic and electronic instruments, academic and folk manners of singing, complicated harmonies, and contemporary high-octane rhythms. The producer is sure that this genre’s future lies with this New Opera and the new academic music.

The premiere of Coriolanus is scheduled for November 29 at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’s Culture and Arts Center.