Opera as an Act of Love

I have been deaf to operatic art for half my life, because I believed that opera was based on an artificial foundation of continuous singing, incompatible with living life. I have never fought against operas, I have never mocked them, like Mayakovsky, who believed that operas were made for non-smokers, in other words, for special lovers of this special dish, to which I, for my part, was simply indifferent. But one day the opera came to my house, I had nowhere to retreat, the brilliant Schnittke created an opera based on my mini-novel “Life with an Idiot.” I not only admitted my mistake – I rushed to correct it, reworking my ideas about freedom in art. Now I think that opera is the freest direction of all the arts. What used to seem conventional to me has now become an amazing absoluteness. In opera, everything is allowed. It is an almost metaphysical dimension, close to enlightenment. After Schnittke, the musicality of my prose became quite conscious, form-generating. In this respect, the novel “The Pink Mouse” became a rhythm novel, that is, a simultaneously thought-out and spontaneous musical phenomenon. Iraida Yusupova turned the musicality of the novel into music, verbal images into musical phrases. The novel went to the screen of her media opera, having lost nothing, on the contrary, having acquired stage authenticity. The opera's heroes themselves received the right to musical existence thanks to the novel's proto-heroine, the Pink Mouse. She was in the novel and remained in Iraida's opera as a clot of vital energy in all its possible manifestations, from rational to divine, from aesthetic to erotic. The Pink Mouse ignited existence. Young Marusya Mendeleyeva, her colleague in the design of the plot of the narrative, is not far behind her. No less significant a figure in the opera is the Guitarist, the chief of evil will, who, however, is in love throughout the opera, and in this state does not fully understand who he is: an agent of love or world evil. In this internal battle with himself, the Guitarist is a new rich operatic figure who finds his theme in the song composition “The Last Lover” – an undoubted pinnacle of modern opera art. None of the other heroes of the opera were created as accomplices of our favorites. Dad is a liberal, Mom is a lover of love, Klop, the first gentleman of Marusya Mendeleyeva, his dad, who is eaten as a cutlet many times in the opera – each sister has an earring. Amazingly suits Iraida's music and the artistic design of the media opera. It is difficult to tear yourself away from the screen. The opera is long, like the battle of love relationships itself, like a full-fledged love act, continuing for hours without stopping. This is a love masterpiece, I have no doubt that this is exactly so.