Victory over the sun (opera)

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Work data
Title: Victory over the sun
Original title: Победа над Солнцем
Photograph of the 1st scene of the 1st act of the premiere

Photograph of the 1st scene of the 1st act of the premiere

Original language: Russian
Music: Mikhail Matyushin
Libretto : Alexei Kruchonych
Premiere: December 3rd and 5th 1913, reconstructions since 1983
Place of premiere: Lunapark Theater, Saint Petersburg

Victory over the Sun ( Russian Победа над Солнцем, Pobeda nad solncem ) is the title of the first futurist opera of artists Alexei Kruchenykh , Velimir Khlebnikov , Mikhail Matyushin and Kasimir Malevich . The only performances took place on December 3rd and 5th, 1913 in the Lunapark Theater in Saint Petersburg and led to one of the greatest scandals in theater history. Opera plays an important role in the history of the Russian avant-garde and was retrospectively seen by Kazimir Malevich as the beginning of his suprematist phase.

Authors

The opera is the result of an interdisciplinary collective work by the Russian artists Alexei Krutschonych ( libretto ), Velimir Chlebnikow ( prologue ), Mikhail Matjuschin ( music ) and Kasimir Malewitsch (light direction, costumes and stage design), which took place after the first Pan-Russian Congress of Futurists (the “ Singer of the Future ”) in Uusikirkko, today's Russian Poljany , in July 1913. The aim of the meeting was to write a futuristic theater as an attack on "the bulwark of artistic misery", the Russian theater. The performances were organized by the Soyuz Molodeschi (Union of Youth) artist group. The rent for the theater is said to have taken up a large part of the funds for the production.

content

The prologue of the piece has no relation to the further content of the opera, but is intended to attract the audience's attention. The actual plot then mainly focuses on the experiences of a time traveler, who tells of a changed society in the 35th century, “There is power without violence, and the rebels fight with the sun and although there is no happiness there, everyone looks happy and immortal … No wonder that I am very dusty… ”The fight of the“ futuristic strongmen ”against the sun is won and the sun is locked in a“ house made of concrete ”. The second act describes the prospects of society without the sun “in tenth countries”, without the past and without memories: “We shot at the past. Is there anything left? Not a trace. ”It turns out that the liberated have little to do with the freedom they have gained :“ Everyone found it easy to breathe and many do not know what to do with themselves because of their incredible ease. Some try to drown themselves, the weak have lost their minds, they said: we can become terrible and strong. That made her complain. ”At the end there is the conclusion:“ Well, everything starts well, we have no end. If the whole world perishes, we are without end. ”The course of the plot is overlaid by partly incomprehensible and alogical episodes that make the linear understanding of the story much more difficult.

Background - Russian Revolution, Futurism and Suprematism

“In an opera performance, we practice the total smashing of concepts and words, old decorations and musical harmony. We created a new work, freed from conventional experience, - full of itself in the seeming senselessness of words, painting and sounds - we created the new signs of the future ”(quoted from Mona Förtsch). The distance to the actual plot, which is achieved through stylistic devices such as deliberate wrong singing or onomatopoeia and a retuned piano instead of the usual orchestra, ultimately does not allow any conclusions to be drawn with regard to any political intentions of the authors , although the time in which the opera was written and performed , clearly reflected and commented on. The intentions for a renewal of the theater culture and of Russian art and culture in general were obvious: “The actors were positioned in the middle of the audience, yelling at them during the course of the play, attacking them and spat at them. The actual goal ... [was] ... to involve the viewer in the performance in order to provoke mental and physical outbursts and thus make art perceptible. ”The opera“ brings to mind the struggle of the earth's inhabitants against the sun - a symbol of life force, but also that Reason, the enlightenment - as well as the final conquest of the celestial body through modern technology, especially through the use of flying machines. "In several places Krutschonych uses the transrational bridle language he developed , a vocal precursor of Dada and concrete poetry :" The Zakuverkalaj itched him […] Sprenkurezal stor dvan entel ti te […] Amda kurlo tu ti caught and sucked in […] LLL KR KR TLP TLMT KR VD TR KR VUBR DU DU RA LKBI SHR VIDA DIBA “. Matyushin composed the music using quarter tone intervals (first quarter tone experiments ) and noises, such as propeller and machine noises, cannon thunder. The stage curtain showed Kasimir Malewitsch's Black Square , the nothing that has become substance , one of the key works of art history , of Futurism and the initial work of Suprematism . Due to the cubo-futuristic costumes, the possibilities in terms of movement sequences were reduced. The effect of the stage and costumes on the audience was enhanced by the use of spotlights and light effects, and the actors' bodies were often only partially illuminated. The costumes made of wire and cardboard were based on the basic geometric shapes and the colors black, yellow, red and blue. One of the stated objectives of the opera was the transition from Cubism to abstraction to stage.

More than with many other events, the historical-political, but especially the artistic-cultural context must be consulted for an interpretation . The political background is - even if the intentions of the authors are difficult to assess - far more obvious than the artistic one. In this way, the piece can be seamlessly integrated into the pre-revolutionary developments in Russia since 1905 . The fight against the sun symbolizes the fight against the traditional and reflects the industrial revolution of flourishing late Arist Russia. The ironic break through the listed artistic stylistic devices allows different conclusions and partly turns the revolutionary content on its head. The scope for possible interpretations is conceivably open. The scandal, however, came about primarily through the consistent use of stylistic devices that were still strange at the time. But the content also shows distance. After capturing the sun, it says, “We are free. The sun is shattered. Long live the darkness, the black gods, their darling - the pig. "The light of the sun is shifted inside:" We are dark to face. Our light is in us. ”The performances of the opera are said to have led to tangible disputes with the audience; most of the critics completely rejected the work. The opera has influenced numerous artists in their work, according to El Lissitzky , who thematized Victory over the Sun in 1923 with a portfolio.

Structure and sets

Victory over the Sun is divided into a prologue, two elevators and six pictures . Four images are provided for the first elevator, two images for the second. Below are all of the surviving sketches by Malevich for the stage sets. In later years Malevich created other sketches based on the curtains, which are not shown here.

  • 1st act, 1st scene

  • 1st act, 2nd scene

  • 1st act, 3rd scene

  • 1st act, 4th scene

  • 2nd act, 1st scene

  • Act 2, scene 6

occupation

Mainly amateur actors were presented as counter-personal, strongly stereotypical characters:

  • First futuristic power man
  • Second futuristic power man
  • Nero and Caligula in one person
  • Traveler through all times
  • Someone with bad intentions
  • The quarrelsome
  • enemy
  • Enemy warrior
  • The athletes
  • mortician undertaker
  • Sun bearer
  • Babbler on the phone
  • Colorful eye
  • The new
  • The cowards
  • Reader
  • The thick
  • The long-established one
  • The attentive worker
  • The young man
  • The pilot
  • Choir

Below are all of Malevich's sketches for the costumes. In later years after the performance, Malevich created a few more sketches of the characters that are not shown here.

  • Futuristic power man

  • Nero

  • Traveller

  • Someone with bad intentions

  • enemy

  • athlete

  • mortician undertaker

  • New

  • coward

  • reader

  • Fatter

  • Age

  • Attentive worker

  • Chorister

  • Several and one alone

  • bat

Reconstructions

Only fragments of the opera have survived. So far there have been few noteworthy reconstructions of the piece. One comes from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts , directed by Robert Benedetti (Victory over the Sun) and was performed at the 1983 Berlin Festival . In this version, the aspect of spoken theater is given greater consideration.

Scene from the 2014 performance in Moscow

In 1984 the Theaterunie Amsterdam (director: Chaim Levano , musical director: Huub Kerstens ) developed the production "Overwinning op de Zon", which emphasized the conception of the biomechanical machine theater and in a version in German also on the experimental stage of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Theater im Marstall .

A third version from 1993 sees itself more as a development of the material and comes from the Austrian K&K music theater under the direction of Dieter Kaufmann , music: Sergei Dreznin , stage design and film: Klaus Karlbauer . The composer and pianist Sergei Dreznin has been trained in Vsevolod Meyerhold's biomechanics , which were already used for the staircase scene of the armored cruiser Potemkin . This version takes greater account of the operatic character of the original. Another version conducted by Julia Hollander , music: Jeremy Arden , was performed in London in 1999. A reconstructed version has been part of the permanent repertoire of the Stas Namin Theater in Moscow since 2013 .

literature

  • Gisela Erbslöh: Pobeda nad solncem. A futuristic drama by A. Kručenych (Otto Sagner, Munich 1976. ISBN = 3-87690-111-1)
  • Victory over the Sun (1983), reconstruction of the Los Angeles County Museum in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts, directed by Robert Benedetti. (Video archive of the Mime Centrum, Berlin; 50 min.)
  • Sieg über die Sonne (1993), reconstruction of the K&K music theater under the direction of Dieter Kaufmann, music: Sergei Dreznin, stage design and film: Klaus Karlbauer in collaboration with the Welimir Chlebnikow Society and the K & K Experimental Studio . (Video archive of the Mime Centrum, Berlin; 55 min.)
  • Libretto “Sieg über die Sonne” , German translation by Gisela Erbslöh
  • Julia Kuon: The theater as a total work of art . Pobeda nad sol ncem - victory over the sun .
  • Total work of art. Higher reason . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1983, pp. 180-182 ( online ).
  • Conne-Island, Culture Report: The October Revolution and the accompanying artistic avant-garde . Down with your love! Down with your art! Down with your order! Down with your religion!
  • Victory over the sun. From the repertoire of the K&K music theater.
  • Mona Förtsch: The opera “Victory over the Sun” - a collective work by futuristic artists . Zittau 2006
  • Felix Philipp Ingold: The big break. Russia in the epoch year 1913 . Berlin 2013
  • Christiane Bauermeister et al .: Victory over the sun. Aspects of Russian Art at the Beginning of the 20th Century . Exhibition by the Akademie der Künste , Berlin and the Berliner Festwochen from September 1 to October 9, 1983, exhibition catalog
  • Victory over the Sun . Article on the London reconstruction
  • Juan Allende-Blin : Victory over the Sun - Critical Notes on Matjušin's Music . In: Aleksandr Scriabin and the Scriabinists II . Music Concepts 37/38 (Eds. Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn ), edition text + kritik , Munich 1984, pp. 168–182. ISBN 3-88377-171-6 .

Web links

Commons : Victory over the Sun  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Julia Kuon: The theater as a total work of art. Pobeda nad sol ncem - victory over the sun
  2. ↑ Gesamtkunstwerk. Higher reason . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1983, pp. 180-182 ( online ).
  3. ↑ a b c d e libretto Sieg über die Sonne , German translation by Gisela Erbslöh
  4. ↑ a b c Sieg über die Sonne (1993), reconstruction of the K&K music theater under the direction of Dieter Kaufmann , music: Sergei Dreznin, stage design and film: Klaus Karlbauer in collaboration with the Welimir Chlebnikow Society and the K & K Experimental Studio . (Video archive of the Mime Centrum, Berlin; 55min.)
  5. ↑ Victory over the sun. From the repertoire of the K&K music theater.
  6. ^ Conne-Island, Culture Report: The October Revolution and the accompanying artistic avant-garde. Down with your love! Down with your art! Down with your order! Down with your religion!
  7. ^ Felix Philipp Ingold : The great break. Russia in the epoch year 1913 . Berlin 2013
  8. ↑ a b Victory over the Sun (1983), reconstruction of the Los Angeles County Museum in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts, directed by Robert Benedetti. (Video archive of the Mime Centrum, Berlin; 50min.)
  9. ^ Victory over the Sun. Article on the London reconstruction