«MUSECUBE» portal

A musical The Great Gatsby — The story of the way to the dream

The long-awaited premiere of this autumn is the story of the «Great Gatsby» in the genre of musical presented by the Music Hall Theatre. On the evening of October 20, we were lucky to plunge into the incredible atmosphere of New York of the twenties of the last century. Translucent life, glam parties, and life in the rhythm of jazz. The composer Vladimir Baskin created a magnificent musical canvas, perfectly reflecting all the features and rhythms of that era. And the author of the libretto Konstantin Rubinsky wrote wonderful texts, which poetically filled the action. As a result the original Russian production was born. Not the translation and adaptation of an existing performance or musical, as often happens in our country, but musical created specifically by the Russians for the Russians. Perception easiness, melodiousness of the words plexus and a memorable musical component make this musical very attractive and the songs from it pop in your head for a long time, arousing an irresistible desire to listen to them again.

The basis of the plot is the story of great love, the way to the dream and the sudden collapse of hopes. Illusions dissolved, and the tragic ending is inevitable. The story is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway played by Roman Dryablov. This character obviously is not made for this pompous high society he was destined to dive in. It`s like he is too pure, sincere and blameless. This is the character who does not have double standards, and during the performance he invariably evokes sympathy and understanding.

Daisy Buchanan embodied by Maria Elizarova is a «golden girl» of that epoch.  Beauty, gracefulness, lightness and tender seductive always charm and attract. But in fact, it is only a wrapper without filling inside. Daisy appeared to be very superficial person, not high-minded sensitive nature, which she was in Gatsby`s thoughts, and at the turning point she refuses to change anything. The seeming, counterfeit tragicalness she tries to show at the beginning of the story crumbles to dust in the finale. Immaturity, pamperedness and ordinariness do not allow her to take the plunge, and Daisy stays on familiar territory.

Her husband Tom Buchanan performed by Vyacheslav Nogin is a typical member of high society. Haughty, arrogant, holier-than-thou, he loves bright life and entertainment. Tom's principles do not prevent him from having a mistress and paying almost no attention to the legal wife. But once he felt that his own wife could escape, it woke up rage and jealousy. Beautiful arias, acting and powerful voice of Vyacheslav conveyed the whole palette of feelings of his character to the full extent. And when he bids farewell to the body of his tragically deceased mistress, we see the depth of his grief and amusedly realize that this man is able to love in his own way.

There are a lot of memorable characters in this performance. Jordan Baker by the Julia Asorgina is a strong imperious woman with her own charm and aesthetics. George Wilson by Alexei Shtykov and his despair, pain and love for his wife arouse sincere compassion. Myrtle Wilson by Irina Chumantyeva is a very vivid person dreaming about rich and free life.

Mr Wolfsheim and guest star played by Konstantin Kitanin are undoubtedly charismatic characters and each of their appearance on the stage immediately captures the attention of viewers.

 And finally, the principal character is Jay Gatsby. It was like Alexander Osinin did not just play but lived the whole complicated life of this character on the stage, so organically everything was – from looks and smiles to words and movements. This man with incredible charm and just fantastically in love so obsessively followed his dream, went through such a difficult path, and in the end, having received only a few moments of happiness, tragically left this world. Gatsby truly believed that it was possible to turn back the clock and make things right, enter the river for the second time and get his beloved back again. Profound arias and moments he lived on stage undoubtedly found the warmest response in the hearts of the audience. And even such a sad ending was not deprived of a key feeling of the character – faith. Gatsby was never able to lose his faith in Daisy once and for all, and waited and hoped for her call until the last moment of his life.

Marvelous video installations, magnificent scenery, wonderful costumes and images, amazing choreography and dance numbers showed the high level of this musical and all the amazingly talented people involved in its production. The production director Natalia Indeykina skillfully put together all the components for a special and spectacular production and breathed life into this story. Dynamic action, perfect mise-en-scenes, delicious nuances and moments, combined with undeniably talented artists, wonderful poetic and musical material, created really peculiar and interesting musical.

 The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald is one of the most popular American novels and the acknowledged masterpiece of world literature. The author accurately described state of rebellious soul of a romantic, whose force is in faith, that is his main advantage, but in the same time his weakness.

 «Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past».

Svetlana Dmitrenko, especially for the Musecube