FULL Scenes from the Life of Nikolenka Irteniev (Banevich) Vladivostok 2021

Sergei Banevich’s concert opera Scenes from the Life of Nikolenka Irtenyev, like Tolstoy’s book that brought it to life, is intended for both children and adults, in whose souls the “light of childhood” has not faded. It turned out to be chamber, intimate – it is difficult to tell otherwise about the most expensive, exciting, fragile time of life.
The opera is structured as a series of reminiscences of the Narrator: a fractional, script-like libretto by Sergei Vasiliev pulls out of the fog individual episodes of Tolstoy’s story. Just like in life – when people grow up, much of the past is forgotten, and only the biggest shocks of childhood remain in the soul. The action is held together by refrain episodes: a waltz that Nikolenka’s sister is learning in the next room; Easter folk song; naive prayer of Nikolenka himself: “God grant happiness to everyone, so that everyone is happy, and that the weather is good for walking.”
The ball scene with a big waltz, a sleepless night, even a remark about the first spring flowers – here much reminds of another opera, also on the plot of Tolstoy. “Scenes from the Life of Nikolenka Irtenyev” in a sense appear as “War and Peace” in miniature, in purity and strength of experience not inferior to the “peaceful” episodes of Prokofiev’s opera.

Bogdan Korolek