The players (Shostakovich)
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The players |
| Original title: | Игроки, Igroki |
| Shape: | Opera in three acts |
| Original language: | Russian |
| Music: | Dmitri Shostakovich (1st act), completed by Krzysztof Meyer |
| Libretto : | Dmitri Shostakovich, text of the comedy of the same name by Nikolai Gogol |
| Premiere: | September 18, 1978 (concert performance, act 1) |
| Place of premiere: | Leningrad Conservatory |
| Place and time of the action: | Inn in the Russian province |
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The Players (Игроки, Igroki) op. 63, is an unfinished opera by Dmitri Shostakovich . The composer wrote them in 1941/42. He used Nikolai Gogol's comedy The Gamblers (1842) as a text . The preserved first act lasts about 47 minutes. Krzysztof Meyer completed the opera with a German text in 1981. Both versions were performed and recorded.
history
Shostakovich used Gogol's satirical short story The Nose as a template for his first opera of the same name . For The Gamblers , he turned to the same writer in 1941, this time on a comedy, The Gamblers . Shostakovich intended to set the piece to music word for word. When he was almost finished with the first act, he realized that this method would make the opera too long and cumbersome. He also foresaw that the caricaturing text and bitter irony of the music would not be welcome under the repressive regime of the time. He canceled the project. Shostakovich used material from the opera torso for the finale of his last composition, a viola sonata.
The music was performed in concert on September 18, 1978 in the hall of the Leningrad Conservatory , sung by members of the Moscow Chamber Theater, with the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Gennady Roshdestvensky . In 2016 a new staged performance was brought out by the New Moscow Opera, directed by Andrei Lebedew.
Completion by Meyer
The Polish composer Krzysztof Meyer completed the opera on a German text, which shortened the two missing acts compared to the comedy and reached a length of about two hours. This version was performed in the Wuppertal Opera House on June 12, 1983, directed by Tristan Schick. One recording was made in 1995 by the Northwest German Philharmonic , conducted by Michail Jurowski , sung in Russian by singers from the Bolshoi Theater , including Vladimir Bogachev in the lead role.
plot
The opera takes place in an inn in the Russian provinces. Icharjew, a cheater , arrives and inquires about the other guests. He learns from a waiter that three guests are playing, Uteschitelny, Schwochnjew and Krugel, a colonel of German descent. A few weeks earlier Icharyev had stolen 80,000 rubles from an officer by cheating.
Icharjew befriends the other players and impresses them with his game "Adelaida Ivanowva". They decide to cheat together and find a victim in Michail Glow, an elderly landowner. He has pledged his estate for 200,000 rubles, but is waiting for the money. He doesn't play himself, but hires his son Alexander to take over business for him.
The four players win 200,000 rubles from Alexander, but because he has no cash, he writes out a change. Uteschitelny bribes an officer. He is leaving with the other two players on the pretext of important deals, after having passed the bill to Ichariev in exchange for 80,000 rubles in cash. Alexander Glow explains to Icharyev that they are all members of a gang that set him up.
Recordings
- Shostakovich: The Players , Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, Andrei Chistyakov (1995) OCLC 46339426
- Shostakovich: The players , with the nose , Gennady Roschdestwenski OCLC 182779514
- Shostakovich: The players ; with Veniamin Fleishman's Rothschild violin . Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra , Vasily Petrenko 2008 OCLC 705325347
- Shostakovich / Meyer: The players (completed) Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie , Michail Jurowski , Capriccio Records (1995) OCLC 695892714
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Gerard McBurney: Shostakovich, Dmitri / The Gamblers (1941-42) / First act of unfinished opera based on Gogol's comedy ( en ) Boosey & Hawkes . 2021. Accessed April 21, 2021.
- ↑ a b c Shostakovich / The Gamblers, Opus 63 (1941-2) ( en ) Retrieved April 21, 2021.
- ↑ Rosamund Bartlett: Pauline Fairclough (Ed.): Shostakovich as Opera Composer . Cambridge University Press , Cambridge 2008, ISBN 978-0-52-160315-7 , p. 192.
- ↑ a b Opera / Dmitri Shostakovich "The Gamblers" Opera in one act ( en ) Bolshoi Theater . May 4, 2016. Accessed April 21, 2021.
- ↑ Malcolm Macdonald: Pauline Fairclough (Ed.): 'I Took a Simple Little Theme and Developed it': Shostakovich's String Concertos and Sonatas . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, ISBN 978-0-52-160315-7 , p. 140.
- ↑ Shostakowitsch, Dmitri / Meyer, Krzysztor (composers) / Shostakowitsch, Dmitri (libretto) / Morgener, Jörg (German) (authors) / The players / Opera in 2 acts based on Nikolai Gogol . Retrieved April 21, 2021.
- ^ A b Matthew Rye: Shostakovich: The Gamblers (completed Meyer) . In: BBC Music Magazine . January 20, 2012.
- ^ W. Mark Roberts: The Gamblers ( en ) DSCH Journal. Archived from the original on August 15, 2011.
- ↑ Shostakovich, D .: Igroki (The Gamblers) [Opera ] ( en ) Naxos . 2010. Retrieved July 21, 2010.