Russia's Catherine the Great returns, as a musical

Enlarge Photo Maria Vinenkova plays Catherine the Great in a musical version of her life at a...

Thu, May 15 06:16 PM

By Conor Sweeney

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (Reuters Life!) - Sex, power and fabulous wealth are images of modern Russia and also the theme for an ambitious new musical evoking one of Russia's most famous rulers.

"Catherine the Great" opens on Thursday in the Urals city that bears her name, Yekaterinburg. The show combines rock, operatic arias and Russian Orthodox religious music to recall the German-born princess and her path to imperial power.

Catherine's personal story contains all the right ingredients for a musical. The story follows her arrival in Russia in 1745, aged 15, and her Russification as the wife of the future Tsar, before assuming power and ruling as an autocrat over a "golden age" of Russian empire until she was 67.

Best-known outside Russia as the place where the family of the last Tsar was murdered 90 years ago, Yekaterinburg now hopes to stir memories of one of the country's best-loved rulers.

Catherine uses a 45-piece orchestra and bursts of electric guitar to complement the arias, choral interludes and ragtime routines that look very much like another musical, 'Chicago'.

"It must become a Russian global hit," classically trained composer Sergei Dreznin told Reuters in an interview.

He compares his work to another famous historical musical, set at the time of the French revolution, 'Les Miserables'.

Though he denies any parallel with Russia's dominant political figure, Vladimir Putin, Dreznin says that buried behind the arias and choreography is an underlying theme about how Russia gravitates towards strong leaders.

"Everything in the script says Russia doesn't change and asks what is the price of power? How did such a gentle German princess became a tyrant? Sure, she was trying to chop as few heads as possible, but she ruled with an iron hand," he said.

Apart from unifying the centre of authority in St. Petersburg's imperial palace, Catherine vastly expanded Russia's empire, winning numerous wars against the Ottomans.

"The logic of power is that if you want to be the great queen you have to be tough, you must sacrifice so much on the way to power, there's almost nothing left," the composer said.

The genre leaps will not be to everyone's taste, but the stars and producers are confident their show has the right mix of court costumes, big dance routines, Russian folklore and the storyline to reach well beyond a domestic audience.

Dreznin has worked on his spectacle around the life of Catherine the Great for almost a decade in between other projects that have taken him around the world.

Naturally, the musical dwells on Catherine's numerous romantic dalliances, though it doesn't ever run to the explicit. Dreznin says he would have preferred less subtlety but had to accommodate Russian taboos.

"The subject of young Catherine is romantic love while older Catherine is approached with humour, but we're talking about sex ...it's absolutely implied, but it's enough for a Russian audience," he said.

In one scene, a young prince cavorts in a Russian banya with numerous ladies, though none are naked - an unlikely scenario since Russians don't normally wear clothes in the steamhouse.

With strong interest from Germany, Dreznin says he'll stick more sex in other versions, if they want it. He's also pondering linguistic questions - like how to make a story told in Russian work elsewhere, possibly by using subtitles.

Star actress Maria Vinenkova, 23, who plays the younger Catherine, says the musical follows a very "Slavic style".

"She's a real woman, who had total power. I know some people who are very sceptical of her, but I think she lived in a difficult time, she didn't control power, power controlled her," she said, just before a final run-though.

In a nearby dressing room, the actress playing the elder Catherine, Nina Shamber, prepared for her performance, which dwells on her trysts with aristocratic favourites.

"I think it will be a fantastic, historical musical spectacle," she says. "We want it to be a big success, not just in Russia, but everywhere."

The 17 million rouble ($712,800) budget is vast by Russian standards. But the director of Yekaterinburg's Theatre of Musical Comedy believes it's a fitting venue for the premiere.

"Our theatre was the laboratory of the Soviet period," said Mikhail Safranov.

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