The General Intonation in the Performance of “Boris Godunov” of Vsevolod Meyerhold — Sergei Prokofiev

The article dwells upon the process of the artistic cooperation between Vsevolod Meyerhold and Sergei Prokofiev by the example of their collaborative work on Alexander Pushkin’s play “Boris Godunov.” The preparation for the actualization of the conception had started long before the main rehearsing period — in 1934, after the issuance of the edict of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) (Communist Party) “Concerning the Foundation of the All-Union Pushkin Committee in connection with the centennial anniversary of the death of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.” The performance was supposed to have become the appropriate response to the festivities of the Pushkin jubilee, but it never got round to being performed at that time. The peculiarities of the interpretation of the drama in the dialogue of the two Masters are examined on the basis of the materials connected with the history of the creation of the performance and the music to it. Analysis is made of the semantic content of the musical numbers (“The Song of the Lonely Wanderer” and the “Songs of Loneliness”), which carry out the function of the through leit-motifs and indirectly characterize Boris Godunov and the Pretender, and also play an important role in the formation of the “general intonation” of the performance. The conclusion is arrived at that the “politically saturated” production of Vsevolod Meyerhold and Sergei Prokofiev touched upon the prohibited “territory of meanings”: the denoted implication unwittingly projected itself on the personal fate of the ruler of the Soviet state.