Ideas’ stories and people’s stories in A. Zholdak’s directorial conception.
Authors: Panasiuk Valerii 
Published: January 2021

Problematic field, objectives and methodology of the study. The “star” figure of A. Zholdak, one of the most shocking directors intriguing with his unpredictability, cannot be overlooked in the sky of modern theatrical art. True, not of national art, but Western European or Russian – the stage productions of the avant-garde director resonate with the priority world trends in theatrical culture. This also applies to musical performances, where the staging process in last time has been carried out under the sign of the “Regio-Theater”, under the director’s concept, which is often radical and revisionist in relation to the author’s source and the interpretive experience of critics and the public. This is evidenced by the A. Zholdak’s “operatic opuses”, namely, “Eugene Onegin” (St. Petersburg, Mikhailovsky’s Theater, 2012–2013 season), “Love drink” (Poznan, Teatr Wielki named after Stanislav Moniuszko, 2018–2019 season), The “Enchantress” (Lyon, Opera National de Lyon, 2018–2019 season). “Opera opuses” by A. Zholdak, being in the “European trend”, remain unknown in Ukraine, not mastered by domestic scientists and, in general, are ignored by the theatrical community. This also applies to the production of Р. Tchaikovsky’s opera “Iolanta” in the 2018–2019 season at the Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg, one of the last, carried out by the director. Like any other “director’s” production, A. Zholdak’s performance touches upon problem areas of the modern musical and drama theater. The first of them is the definition of a system of principles that are guided by contemporary directors, embodying their “radical” concepts on stage. The second is related to the choice of interpretive methodology that is commonly used in the process of radical stage expression’s interpretation. The present study, using the parameters of culturological and theatrical critic analysis, aims to determine the conceptual ideological attitudes, aesthetic paradigms, features of the organization of the narrative in the aforementioned production by A. Zholdak. The results of the study. The first of above-mentioned problem is solved through the understanding of the fact that the libretto and the musical text, i.e. the source material, remain indestructible for any modern opera director. On its basis, a director (co-authored with a playwright and an artist) creates a new narrative with the help of own stage means: set design, costumes, light equipment, video etc. As a result, a “radical reading” effect provokes a conflict of interpretations. The second problem, owning or mastering interpretative mechanisms, is related to the processes of sensing text in the receiving area. It refers to the level of development of skills of “unlocking” the text, skillful possessing (often not possessing) the “keys”, which are appropriate for using in work with a text of modern musical theater.These very problems are actualized by P. Tchaikovsky’s opera “Iolanta” embodiment, performed by A. Zholdak on the stage of the Mikhailovsky’s Theater. As the staging practice of the last decade shows, it is the composer’s work that is undergoing a radical conceptual rethinking. The plot of “Iolanta”, its system of characters and basic metaphors, are completely meeting with the aesthetic principles of symbolism. This explains A. Zholdak’s transfer of opera’s action to the end of XIX and early XX centuries, that is, into the period of establishing symbolism as a worldview and artistic dominant of the era. Aesthetically, the visual decision of the performance of the Mikhailovsky’s Theater (artistic directors – Andriy Zholdak and Daniel Zholdak, director of multimedia and author of light design – Gleb Filshtinsky) meets the criteria of postmodernism. At the same time, the stage story is a parallel unfolding of two autonomous stories: blindness, love and insight of Iolanta and the story of the eponymous P. Tchaikovsky’s opera’s creation. For staging the stories, A. Zholdak chooses the principles of the novel genre with its story linearity, psychological reasoning, obligatory causation. At the same time, the director, not refusing basic (symbolist) expressive means, adds to the novel narrative the “visible symbols” of holiness of the main character Iolanta (the nimbus, the interior of the Orthodox church with its exaggerated Byzantine richness and luxury), which are in fact a purely external expression of this internal idea, which is very difficult for scenic implementation. As a consequence, there is a complication of the characters’ system, the restructuring of the primordial playwriting and re-montage of the opera score. The scale of the stage narrative does not fit into the author’s timing of a one-act opera, and therefore P. Tchaikovsky’s musical material is “added to the load” with the fragments borrowed from other works of the composer (for example, from “Nutcracker’). All this leads to a violation of the unbreakable ethical law of the “Regio-Theater” &#8722; the inviolability of the author’s (verbal and musical) text. The story of P. Tchaikovsky’s creation of his last opera opus is not convincingly staged. Considering the nature of the theater and its expressive capabilities, it is impossible to reveal on the stage the visual equivalent of the creative process and the artist who is in it. Therefore, in A. Zholdak’s play, the actor depicting the composer in the process of working on “Iolanta” performs the row of consistent physical actions, which only demonstrates his professional movement skills, imitating the convulsive-ecstatic tension of the creator. Conclusions. Thus, A. Zholdak attempts “to open” P. Tchaikovsky’s latest opera score by “the key of symbolism” by working with universal ideas and refining hidden meanings. The hints at this grandiose design are the postponement of the opera action in appropriate “epoch” &#8722; the end of XIX to the beginning of XX centuries, in the era of active functioning of symbolism in artistic culture, and the emergence of the “Alter Iolanta” as a new character. But the ideas of symbolism do not have their proper implementation. A. Zholdak tries to presents two stories at the same time (blindness, love and insight of Iolanta and the story of P. Tchaikovsky’s creation of the eponymous opera) based on the principles of the novel genre, which leads to the substitution of “the ideas’ history” on “the human stories”. The result is an artistically contradictory stage build up, which provokes conflict interpretative relationships both by the audience and by the professional criticism.