“The Marriage” / Zenitba
Comic Chamber Opera by Bohuslav Martinu from the play by Nikolai Gogol.
Originally commissioned in 1953 by NBC TV USA in 1953 as part of a series of Opera on Television.
Libretto written in English by Martinu. “The Marriage” has never been theatrically performed in English. This will be the world premiere. It will be produced by the National Theatre (Opera) of Prague (Narodni-Divadlo) as part of the Martinu Revisited Festival 2009. It will play at La Fabrika, a converted factory space and new Arts venue in Holesovice, Prague, June 6/7/8/9 2009. After this it is available for a short European Tour.
The story is simple yet universal. A professional Marriage Broker, Fyokla, tries to find a potential husband for 29 year old Agafya Tikhonova. Agafya dreams of a handsome American (embodied in the persona of The Conductor) but the sad reality is that the only suitors Fyokla can find are Old Russian émigrés, each one more horrific than the last. Herein lays the comedy and the tragedy.
The conductor for all performances in Prague and the European Tour is the gifted and highly acclaimed Marko Ivanovic, staff conductor at Narodni-Divadlo. The Opera is scored for 17 musicians, who will normally be recruited locally. There are 8 singers (1 doubling as a male speaking part) and 1 female speaking part. The conductor, in this version is also a performer. The Marriage plays approximately 1hr 10 mins without interval.
This production is conceived, directed and designed by British theatre artist Pamela Howard. It updates Gogol's St Petersburg of 1850 to the émigré Russian world in New York in 1953, which Martinu may have known. Its aesthetic is to use recycled objects imaginatively to create a modern innovative experience in regenerated spaces.
“The Marriage” normally plays in a ‘chamber/room’ approx 23 metres square by 8 metres high. There is flexibility in the staging, and is adaptable for different venues. The Lighting is by the American Cindy Limauro, known for her crossover work between theatre and architecture in many European cities.
There is no ‘scenery’ as such, but the chamber is an installation of ‘vignettes’ using furniture and objects from the world of these Gogolian characters dislocated from their old world, but living as if they were still ‘in the old country’. The artefacts travel in one container. There is a 1 day technical get-in and unload. 1 day rehearsal with evening performance.
Ideally the installation is open to the public during the day, and there is an accompanying exhibition. This affords good opportunities for Education days for secondary school students.
 Visualisation of the installation/performance space at La Fabrika (Prague) for "The Marriage "/Zenitba Chamber Opera by Bohuslav Martinu. The vignettes show from Left to Right: Dunyashka's quarters; Agafya's bedroon; The women's sitting room; The Entrance Hall; New York City; Podkolyosin's apartment; Stepan's quarters The left front shows the orchestra space and the conductor's podium representing the top of a wedding cake. The small skyscrapers along the front are small painted cardboard stools for spectator seating. |
Gallery of characters from "The Marriage"
‘The Marriage’ Comic Chamber Opera by Bohuslav Martinu (1953) Libretto by Martinu after the play by Nikolai Gogol
The action is updated to New York 1953. (The Russians are a group of emigres living in New York as if they were in The Old Country)
Fyokla, a professional Marriage Broker determines to find a husband for 29-year-old Agafya.
Agafya, dreams of unattainable romance, but is presented with a series of elderly unsuitable suitors. Fyokla tries to introduce the dissolute bachelor Podkolyosin, but his friend the dealer Kochkaryov cuts Fyokla out. Podkolyosin is disappointed when he meets Agafya ‘she has a long nose, and she doesn't speak French’ but finally agrees to an immediate marriage, then and there. Agafya puts on the wedding dress that has been on a hanger for years, but when she returns. Podkolyosin has fled in fear. Agafya faints and is comforted by her old aunt Arina, and the servant Dunyashka. Dunyashka and her husband Stepan count the admission money they have made from the suitors. Fyokla is disgraced.
The Marriage: exploratory workshop Carnegie Mellon University - USA
 Drawing for the workshop version "Three Fragments from The Marriage" Installion and performance Regina Miller Gouger Gallery of Contemporary Art Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh USA November 2006. |
A view of the installation/performance of "Three Fragments from The Marriage" a chamber opera by Bohuslav Martinu from the story by Nikolai Gogol. The installation at the Regina Miller Gouger Gallery of Contemporary Art was arranged over three walls, with the spectators sitting in the middle, looking first at the left hand side "A Batchelor's Walk-Up in New York 1953" and then at the right hand side "A Woman's world, in a some house in New York filled with memories of The Old Country". Before and after the performance the spectators could walk around the installation and enjoy the individual vignettes depicting emigre life in New York in 1953, the date NBC commissioned Martinu to write "The Marriage" as a TV opera.
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