Mikael Tariverdiev (1931–1996) is known by many for two films — The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath and Seventeen Moments of Spring. Older audiences will remember several other films with his music, for example King Deer or Olga Sergeyevna, in which songs to verse by Andrei Voznesensky were performed by the composer himself. His "serious" music is much less well known. Tariverdiev, however, insisted that he belonged to the classical tradition, unwilling to be known only as a composer of "light" music. A fact borne out by both his regular turning to traditional genres (three organ and two violin concerti and the Chernobyl organ symphony) and the titles of individual works (Concerto for Viola and Strings in the Romantic Style and the cycle of choral preludes for organ Imitating Old Masters). Tariverdiev underlined the link with tradition in his works for theatre, which include four ballets and four operas.
Tariverdiev the opera composer was closely connected with the Moscow Chamber Theatre directed by Boris Pokrovsky. Here in 1983 came the premiere of the opera-buffa Graf Cagliostro; here in the early 1990s the composer's longed-for production of The Marriage of Figarenko – a remake of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro — did not take place. The mono-drama Expectation (1985) was also written for the Chamber Theatre: the first performer was Maria Lemesheva, daughter of the acclaimed vocalists Sergei Lemeshev and Irina Maslennikova and Pokrovsky's step-daughter.
For his libretto the composer reworked Robert Rozhdestvensky's poem Expectation (Monologue of a Woman) (1982). The opera retained the main qualities of Rozhdestvensky's text — generic features of the poetry of those of the 1960s: social pathos (Modern Woman! / Tired out by Fuss, but, as before, Divine! ); loud-voiced declamation envisaging a large audience; and somewhat direct metaphors. But Tariverdiev removes the everyday layer of the poem and the direct references to Soviet urban life, aiming instead for a poetic generalisation.
Expectation is unlike an opera in the traditional academic sense of the word. It is music without aplomb, with its confessional and "chastity" making reference to Schubert's lyricism. The musical language is lightened: here the audience may also detect Soviet variety singing from the 1970s and soundtracks for films from that era — we can hear familiar techniques that are pure Tariverdiev. A chain of episodes that emerge in the "flow of consciousness" of the heroine is connected by the leitmotif of anxious expectation — the fleeting tremolo motif that flickers at times in the accompaniment, and at others in the vocal part. In the individual stanza scenes one can see genres of early music shining through: toccatas (the episode Emergency Services with the anxious repetitions in the accompaniment), baroque arias (Say Something to Me; the instrumental finale — "walking music" in the spirit of Bach's Аndantes; allusions to music by Bach, at times unexpected, can frequently be found in Tariverdiev's songs). From the disharmony of the introduction, expressionistic music that inherited Shostakovich's chorale, there bursts forth a polyphonic interlude and the pathetique recitative The Birds Have the Sense to Hide. The heroine's expectation is resolved in the alarm-bell-like oath I Shall Wait until the Very End. The most important thing that attracts us in Expectation is the at times simple and at times excited but always incredibly sincere and confidential intonation of the composer. Here is a well-known although poetically animated and worldly collision, devoid of a clear resolution (we will never know whether the heroine waited for her beloved). Here is a bitter note of melancholy, but also a secret hope for a happy outcome — one of the reasons old films with Tariverdiev's music are so well loved.
Expectation was a success from the first production, and since then it has frequently appeared on theatre playbills – most often in a shared evening programme with similar female opera monologues. Of note is Alla Chepinoga's production at the New Opera (2010), at which Expectation was performed along with Spadavecchia's Letters from an Unknown Woman (Mariinsky Theatre audiences have heard this opera in the 2015-16 season) and Gubarenko's Tenderness. The genre of the mono-opera itself does not require detailed stage commentary, and Expectation is frequently performed in a semi-concert version, to piano accompaniment with minimal props – as is the case now at the Mariinsky Theatre.
Bogdan Korolyok
Mikael Tariverdiev. A beautiful person, who created beautiful music, fully reflecting true nobility of his thoughts and deeds. He was convinced that the highest value in life was sincerity of feelings and intentions and acted in full accordance with his convictions. Tariverdiev had received classical music education: he graduated from the Gnessins Moscow Musical Pedagogical Institute, where he studied composition with A.I.Khachaturian, and possessed the highest professional skills in all genres of serious academic music.
Tariverdiev wrote 4 ballets, 4 operas, a symphony, 3 organ concertos, 2 concertos for violin and orchestra, a concerto for viola and string orchestra, more than 100 romances and songs. However, the composer was best known and gained his incredible popularity by his music for films, the number of which seems fantastic — 132!
Among them are real classics — soundtracks for such films as “Seventeen Moments of Spring” and “The Irony of Fate”, every intonation and every tune of which has become dear and familiar to people from all walks of life. Tariverdiev didn’t write his hits on purpose in order to prove once again and strengthen his popularity. By his own admission, he had composed a hit only once — for a bet — it was the song “Don’t Be Sad” from the film “Huge Ore”. The composer tried to make his “light” music express the feelings of characters and the content of the film just as deeply and meaningfully as his “serious” music.
In the 1960s, Tariverdiev worked at the development of “the third musical style’, combining best features of academic and modern popular music. He doesn’t accept “pop music” with its thoughtlessness, banal poetic and musical techniques and primitive means, which fostered bad taste. Tariverdiev voiced his high spiritual values and principles in his publications against vulgarity in popular music, he also hosted a TV programme on classical music, believing that television should educate its viewers through its sound musical policy.
Tariverdiev always worked very fast. His wife Vera Tariverdieva said: “At some moment something clicks inside him — he sits down to the piano and starts playing a piece from the beginning to the end”. She recalled that Mikael had often dreamed music in his dreams: thus, he played Organ Symphony “Chernobyl” and Viola Concerto from the beginning to the end at a sitting, as finished pieces of music.
As a genre, mono-opera, i.e. a one-person performance, originated in the 18th century, however, it didn’t gain momentum until the 20th century. Interestingly, most often the plot of such compositions explores the psychology of an unhappy woman, who is either abandoned, or is waiting in vain for something or somebody. (F. Poulenc “La voix humaine” (“The Human Voice”), A.Spadavekkia “A Letter from an Unknown Woman”, A.Schoenberg “Erwartung” (“Expectation”) and others).
The mono-opera “Expectation” was composed by Mikael Tariverdiev to the poem by Robert Rozhdestvensky specially for the Boris Pokrovsky Chamber Theatre and was designed for the unique talent of Maria Lemesheva, a daughter of the celebrated singer Sergei Lemeshev.
A woman comes on a date 32 minutes early and during the time of her agonising wait she experiences a storm of emotions expressed in the form of a monologue. Tariverdiev’s music, touchingly ingenuous at one moment, and desperately expressive at another, captures the audience with its sincerity and a profound compassion for the heroine. It remains unknown whether her dreams will come true and whether the man she loves so passionately will come, this uncertainty gives this twist in the storyline a particular bitter feel without depriving one of a sweet dream.
Basically, the same feelings — everlasting longing for love, a hidden passion, mortal anguish, hope, emotional exhaustion, despondency are embodied in another performance set to Mikael Tariverdiev’s music — “Non-Random People”. The plot is based on several stories from the lives of various people. Tariverdiev’s songs composed to lyrics by different poets provide a favourable ground for creating a bright emotional and psychological atmosphere of the performance.
Zoya Gumenyuk
