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

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Scenes from the Life of Nikolenka Irteniev  
• Composer: Banevich Sergei   
• Libretto: Sergei Vasiliev based on the autobiographical trilogy by L.N. Tolstoy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth” and biographical materials related to the last days of the writer’s life    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Primorsky Stage Company of the Mariinsky Theater, Vladivostok, Russia  
• Recorded: October 30, 2021
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Roman Krukovich, Ilya Astafurov, Alexei Kostyuk, Anastasia Kikot, Svetlana Rozhok, Alina Mikhailik
• Conductor: Larisa Gergieva   
• Orchestra:
• Stage Director: Alexei Stepanyuk  
• Stage Designer: Anna Soboleva  
• Costume Designer:   
• Lighting Designer: Andrey Ponizovsky  

Information about the Recording

• Date Published: 2021  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE

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

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