Alexandrian Songs

This performance by actress Irina Grinyova is based on the notion of merging three Alexandrias as places where dreams live and feelings are born.

The first is an ideal dream city where beauty and love reign supreme. The second is the real Alexandria, with its long trail of history, the center that gave its name to an entire trend of Hellenistic poetry. The third is a symbolic city of a Russia that was lost, a place that, by chance, became a home for Russians who lost their homeland after the revolution.

The title Alexandrian Songs is borrowed from a collection of poems of the same name by Mikhail Kuzmin. The poet not only expressed his impressions of a trip to Egypt, but he also demonstrated an excellent mastery of ancient Greek poetic meter. Imitating the Hellenes, he himself gave rise to a wave of mimicry among writers of the Silver Age.

Kuzmin was also a composer: he developed all his poems "musically," emphasizing rhythm and melodic intonation. It is in this vein, balancing between singing and expressive declamation, that Irina Grinyova revives the great Russian poetry of various eras, united by the glorification of a near and dear, but elusive ideal – including works by Alexander Pushkin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Joseph Brodsky, Zinaida Gippius and Mikhail Kuzmin.

The audience is transported to the first half of the 20th century, when Alexandrian Songs was created, and free creativity reigned in the cabaret. The second part of the performance is dedicated to this unique cultural phenomenon – the actress performs not only poetry, but music as well, romances and songs by Alexander Vertinsky, and hits from the repertoire of Marlene Dietrich.

An acoustic orchestra creates a historically accurate atmosphere as musicians improvise on violin, piano and drums. The composition is framed by the slow movement of Schubert's Piano Trio No. 2, where a “straight” marching pace combines with the “flowing” melody, just as in the play the poetry of the poets collides with the merciless passage of time.