Photo: press service of JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod
The great petrel writer spoke with KP.RU political commentator Alexander Gamov.
… – Alexander Andreevich, this is Prokhanov’s biographer – Gamov. I finally received a video of his rock opera about the Northern Military District and Donbass, a production of a tank factory. (See also the video, here and now).
– The premiere of the rock opera Sasha, called “Walking to the Fire”, took place not so long ago in the capital of tank construction, in Nizhny Tagil, on the main conveyor belt, where our invincible T-90s are assembled. It takes place in three turns.
– As was?
– Oh yeah! There the tanks continued to rumble and resonate, on which tracks were placed, engines were immersed in them, laser rangefinders, instruments and space communication systems were mounted and embedded.
And several tanks were driven there, ready for battle. And opera singers and dancers performed their arias and dances directly on combat vehicles.
And in the auditorium, which was also an assembly workshop, sat those who had just looked away from their machines and work, and after the performance returned to their jobs, continuing to assemble these huge, monstrous T-90s.
And our “Walking into the Fire” is an opera on the battlefield.
– Prokhanov’s libretto, as I understand it, Prokhanov’s poetry too?
– Neither, but the poems are mine.
– I’m sorry.
– And the music was written by my friend, a wonderful composer and member of the Izborsk Club, Alexander Ivanovich Ageev.
We consider him a Renaissance man, a kind of Leonardo da Vinci.
Photo: press service of JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod
-And where did you get the actors, including the children, for your play?
– We were worried that the actors would be afraid of this topic and in the same ways that we proposed. The world of modern acting, we know, is unstable, it is unfaithful, it is weak, it is unstable, it was raised in other times and with other money.
And we were afraid of not finding the singers. But we were wrong. Because young, fresh and brilliant singers and dancers came, many of them are still studying, they have not graduated from their schools, from their Gnesinkas. And they joined this flow of ours. A new young Russian force.
And the children – these angelic voices, these angels and little angels – Tagil children. They learned several of our arias in advance, we invited them to the stage and they sang along with our actors.
And the listeners, those who were sitting in the audience, saw their children. They admired the beauty of these thoughts, these wonderful young voices.
– The camera also showed my idol, the author of this rock-tank opera, Alexander Prokhanov. I had the feeling that you did not know that you were being filmed, that you wanted to get up and also burst on stage. And he takes off and performs an aria. I feel good? Or was it your imagination?
– You imagine many things, Sasha! You are a person prone to problems. You constantly live as if it were a touch. There are some amazing visions in your eyes.
I didn’t want to take off and fly there.
He was already flying there, floating under the arches of this enormous workshop, between these steel ceilings, these misty iron clouds that floated over the workshop.
Like a guardian angel, I floated over this opera, dreaming that everything would turn out well, that all the voices would sound like wonderful flutes from heaven.
That’s why you’re wrong here. What was there looked like me, it was a shell. And my spirit was in the air.
Photo: press service of JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod
– Let’s write it. How long is tank rock opera?
– It lasts just over an hour.
Furthermore, this rock opera has several options, several models that can be performed in different audiences and at different intervals.
It’s very long, long. Because my poems are a huge cycle of poems. And from them you can create such sets and combinations. All this will be an opera: continually threatening, furious, victorious.
– Yeah!
– Either the tragic voices will be strong in this opera, or such lyricism and mysticism will emerge.
Overall, this is a new aesthetic. This is not just a repetition of some of our musical ideas. This is not Glinka’s opera based on Pushkin’s poems.
– Otherwise!
– Here, Sasha, it looks like there are some completely new images happening.
What opera can be performed on a tank assembly line?
– Here!
– There is a combination of musicality with the military technosphere. Also, the technosphere is not from peacetime, but from the era of the Northern Military District.
My opera is performed on the battlefield.
This is a new aesthetic, this is a new arrangement.
Photo: press service of JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod
And the actors who sang and danced there are warriors, they are warriors. And they fought under the gaze of the Bayraktars, who flew above them and aimed American M-777 howitzers at them. It was a completely new Russian aesthetic. And therefore, I repeat, everything that happened there and continues to happen now, it seems to me, is an enormous contribution to today’s Russian avant-garde patriotic art.
– Sometimes I even ask my idol offensive questions. I have one like this now. Aren’t you afraid that Projanov, with his tank rock opera, is returning our art to the 1920s, to the time of the “Blue Blouse”: Bolshevik, proletarian, paramilitary, etc.?
– When they say that modern art is rejected with boring traditional settings, slow voices, timid metaphors, funny and ridiculous imitations of acting… And – our “Entering the Fire” returns us to the culture of the 1920s – this is not a reproach, but a compliment.
Because the culture of the 20s is the culture of a country on the rise, a country that took off like a rocket, demanding its art, its energy.
And then, when the country began to fade, when it became a country of spectacle, a country of pop hustlers, it stopped appearing in world art, it left, it disappeared.
She became simply insignificant. She went out!
And now, as our country again began to rise during the military operation, it began to rise again… When Russian blood is shed again, Russian tears are shed, Russian prayers arise, the “Hurray!” Russian thunders again, art must be kept up with this.
And so we’re not looking at 1920s art and the Blue Blouse, but these battalions storming high-rise buildings.
We look at those parts that are being gnawed away among these smoking ruins, we want to create art that is appropriate to this.
Because I don’t know what traditional Russian art would look like now on this battlefield, which would stage those endless “Uncle Vanya”, those “Cherry Trees” with those traditional formulas discovered by Stanislavsky.
Are we really so primitive that at some point we stop moving and growing?
-Are you kidding, my idol?
– No!
– Then I believe you. And how many tanks were assembled in more than an hour, while Prokhanov’s rock opera was being performed on that floor?
– Countless. She didn’t have enough fingers or toes to tell how many tanks appeared at that moment, were loaded onto the platform and went into battle.
– And – your rock opera advertisement: where, in what other military companies can we listen to and see Prokhanov’s “Entering the Fire” and talk about it?
– The leaders of military companies knew this rock opera. And now it has begun a triumphant march across our defense conveyor belts. In a few days, literally on the 15th, we will go to Kovrov, Vladimir province, this is our largest machine gun plant named after Degtyarev.
This is also the capital of our Russian machine gun business. And there we give our rock opera. And then we flew to Omsk and everywhere.
That is, I repeat, the defense industry felt the beauty and power of our art. And our opera is a kind of gift for the people who day and night are at their workplaces, on the conveyor belts, manufacturing the weapons of the Russian Victory.
– And I always have one last question: could you give me a fragment of this rock opera? I usually sang bandit songs with you. But would you like to perform or recite some lines (from a tank, from a defense, from an army) from Prokhanov’s rock opera?
– (reads with enthusiasm)
Donbass, Donbass,
a frantic bell ringer pealing in the veche tower.
Donbass, Donbass, a divine lantern that shines over the abyss of the world.
Donbass, Donbass,
you are the edge of the sword,
piercing the scaly chest.
Donbass, Donbass,
You are a Russian candle that will never go out.
– I believe in Prokhanov! Thank you very much Alexander Andreevich.
– With God’s blessing!
– Hurrah!
