Simon Bruckard & Constantine Costi on Melbourne, Cheremushki

Message from Simon Bruckard

Cheryemushki is unlike almost everything else in Shostakovich’s vast output. For someone who had at the time written 11 symphonies and the brilliantly dark and disturbing opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District to suddenly turn around and produce the equivalent of a Broadway musical was shocking at the time. Critics didn’t know what to make of it.

But the music is undeniably brilliant. Despite its apparent simplicity and tunefulness, it has all the hallmarks of Shostakovich’s ironic humour and parody. Its relentless cheeriness, quick tempos and dance breaks (yes, dance breaks) belie a harsh critique of what it was like to live in Moscow in the 1950s. It is extraordinary how easily the concerns of the time translate to contemporary Melbourne, and it actually required very few modifications to modernise the libretto.

Shostakovich wrote his original operetta for a traditional large orchestra, the arrangement we are performing by British composer and arranger Gerard McBurney adds a whole new dimension. It’s an unusual combination of instruments, including saxophones, trumpets, banjo and a huge array of percussion. The sound world is brash, contemporary and outright whacky in times – it perfectly suits the surreal and absurd staging and I am certain Shostakovich would approve.

In response to bemused critics at the time, Shostakovich wrote that “a true composer must try his hand in every genre.” Very few composers can say that they actually achieved this. It is an absolute delight to have the opportunity to perform this rarely performed work with a cast of young, emerging talent.

Message from Constantine Costi

The housing crisis across Australia is the worst it’s been in decades.

Struggling to find a roof over one’s head, coughing up rising rent, and dealing with the greedy miscreance of agents and landlords is pushing renters to a breaking point.

But this operetta is a comedy – or maybe a manic dance atop a societal volcano on the verge of financial eruption. Departures into magic realism are the only respites from a dire reality.

This operetta is also about young people. The immediacy of a young cast (our VO emerging artists) portraying these characters makes profound sense to us and we were floored by how contemporary the young lovers of this piece feel. Their relationships are far from slick; these couples are awkward, confused, and full of romantic misfires – this could not be closer to the experience of the contemporary dater.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine meant that the whimsical references of the original operetta to Moscow’s charming lanes and the overwhelming benevolence of Russian governance did not sit well with us to say the least. Whilst of course this piece was written before the Putin regime, we felt the glowing references to Soviet nostalgia would ultimately take away and distract from the core of the piece – the corruption of those in power in the housing market. So the publishers kindly permitted us to update references to contemporary Melbourne. And in updating these references we were shocked to see how easily ‘corrupt Soviet bureaucrat’ was replaced by ‘immoral Melbourne real estate agent’.

Our Melbourne, Cheremushki is a heightened Ren and Stimpy meets the Sex Pistols universe of rascals and ratbags making do and trying to have a good time in the midst of impending financial ruin.

Message from Richard Mills

This operetta from Soviet Russia of the 1950s has a timely relevance in contemporary Melbourne.

Hope in the future is sometimes difficult for the current group of teens and twenties (and for us oldies also at times) – but the possibility of a place to call a “room of one’s own” is pretty basic to conducting the business of life. Housing has become a trading currency in our major cities – its bizarre price structure placing even modest dwellings forever beyond the capacity of the normal salary earner; the “ Australian Dream” of the 1950s and 1960s has vanished for many.

Our creative team has made the telling parallel between equal lack of benevolence and the mixture of both subterranean and flagrant mischief that characterised the Soviet housing bureaucracy of Shostakovitch’s time and the antics surrounding the real estate activity in our city – a generally unflattering portrait on both accounts  it would seem.

But the underlying grim pessimism is leavened by the fascination of character and an underlying sense of the ridiculous – salvation is found in the ironic humour of shared hardships. This is of course a discernible thread in Russian literature – from the great storytellers of the nineteenth century like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky to the magic realists of the 20th century like Michael Bulgakov whose novel “The Master and Margarita” concerns a visitation to Moscow of the Devil in form of a giant cat. Shostakovich is also a great storyteller in music – his symphonies have the vast ambitious canvas and narrative complexity  of the Russian novel – as well as ironic humour, wit and thematic character.

This  love of character and story makes this piece so interesting and approachable for emerging performers – who have been led by a talented and young creative team all at the thresholds of what I am sure will be important careers in the future.