DEAD SOULS

The 4th edition of the Pacific International Theatre Festival will conclude with a concert-performance created for the 90th birth anniversary of the great composer Alfred Schnittke. Marina Brusnikina's production is based on Schnittke's famous Gogol Suite, based on the music for Yuri Lyubimov's play The Census Tale, and excerpts fr om Nikolai Gogol's poem Dead Souls. Conducting the All-Russian Youth Symphony Orchestra will be People's Artist of the USSR Yuri Bashmet, a musician who enjoyed a long friendship and creative collaboration with Schnittke. People's Artist of the Russian Federation Evgeny Mironov and Maria Smolnikova will read selected excerpts from the poem, focusing not on the iconic landowners but on Gogol's lesser-known, but no less expressive, characters. The performance's visual design, created by costume designer Victoria Sevryukova and video artist Asya Mukhina, complemented the stage performance, emphasizing the contemporary sound of the classics and immersing the audience in a world wh ere the sublime and the ignoble collide, and "laughter seen by the world" turns to "unseen tears."