Schnittke, Alfred

Life with an Idiot (1992)

Duration: 110 minutes
opera in two acts

libretto by Viktor Yerofeyev (R)

Scoring
S,T,2Bar,B-Chorus of Friends, Chorus of Idiots, Chorus of Homosexuals, Chorus of Informers 1.1.1.1-1.1.1.1-timp.perc(4)-clav(=cemb/org/cel)-strings(5.5.4.4.5) 8 additional windplayers in second picture (orchestral wind section) This work is represented by Boosey & Hawkes in the UK, British Commonwealth (excluding Canada) and the Republic of Ireland .
Abbreviations (PDF).

Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the UK, countries of the Commonwealth (excluding Canada) and the Republic of Ireland.

World Premiere
4/13/1992
Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam
Boris A Pokrovsky, dir/Ilja Kabakow, prod/Jean Kalman, lighting engineer
Conductor: Mstislav Rostropovich
Company: Netherlands Opera/Rotterdam PhilharmonicOrchestra

Roles

I	Baritone
WIFE	Soprano
VOVA	Tenor
WARDER	Bass
YOUNG MAN	Tenor
MARCEL PROUST	Baritone
Chorus of Friends, Idiots, Homosexuals	Chorus (SATB)

Time and Place
Russia in the Soviet era

Synopsis

The opera is related by a couple, ‘I’ and The Wife, as a story that has already taken place, though events on stage do not necessarily follow a chronological order. A group of friends gather in a small Soviet apartment to celebrate the fact that I and The Wife have accepted an ‘idiot’ called ‘Vova’ (short for ‘Vladimir’, as in Vladimir Iliich Lenin) to come and live with them. Vova bursts on to the stage, seizes The Wife and decapitates her with a pair of kitchen scissors. I is sexually excited by this act.

I goes to a lunatic asylum to choose an idiot to come and live with him. He tells the guard that he is looking for a ‘holy fool’ and after examining various inmates chooses Vova. The Wife is appalled. Vova can only repeat a single word - ‘Ech!’ I explains that "now I will tell you how I became his".

The three characters are living together in the apartment. At first silent and withdrawn, Vova gradually becomes more violent, smearing food and faeces on the walls and ripping up books. Smashing the telephone, he cuts the apartment off from the outside world. Taking refuge in their second room, I and The Wife quarrel. Vova forces an entry, seizes The Wife and copulates noisily with her. I fetches a kitchen knife to kill Vova.

Sexually satisifed, Vova becomes cleaner and more house-trained. I must now sleep in one room, while The Wife and Vova live together in the other. When The Wife becomes pregnant by Vova, after some doubt she aborts the child. This enrages Vova who diverts his attentions to I. Now it is I and Vova who live together, while The Wife is in the other room. The Wife attempts to reclaim Vova for herself, but Vova decapitates her with kitchen shears, to I’s intense excitement.

Moods
Comic

Subjects
Contemporary, Politics, Society

Recommended Recording
Dale Duesing, Romain Bischkoff, Teresa Ringholz, Howard Haskin, Leonid Zimnenko, Robin Leggate, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Mstislav Rostropovich
Sony CD52495

Click here to purchase this CD set from Amazon