During Welsh National Opera’s Autumn 2022 Season, WNO Youth Opera return to our home venue Wales Millennium Centre to perform Cherry Town, Moscow, otherwise known as Cheryomushki a satirical operetta by composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Exploring the housing crisis in Moscow’s Cheryomushki region, leading soviet humourists of the period, Vladimir Mass and Mikhail Chervinsky wrote the libretto, which is set in the 1950s.
Cheryomushki is the name given to the apartment block that the story focuses on, a newly built residential building that our protagonists are trying to find a home in. They find their way blocked by corrupt bureaucrats and must find ingenious and creative ways to find a home in the south-western region of Moscow. Although the piece is light-hearted and sardonic, Shostakovich’s composition reaches over a wide range of different musical styles, imitating classic Russian music as well as introducing jazz and ballet within his opera.
The story starts with Sasha and his wife Masha, Lidochka and her father Semyon, as they travel to Cheryomushki, a region of Moscow where the newly built apartments that they have been granted stand. They are accompanied there by Sergei and Boris, the latter of which quickly falls in love with Lidochka, but when they arrive, they find that the estate manager Barbarashkin is unwilling to hand over the keys and is restricting their access to many of the apartments.
Discovering that they can’t access their apartment by conventional means, Boris cunningly uses the construction crane to lift Lidochka and her father through the window of the new apartment. As they begin to settle into their new home, Barbarashkin bursts through the walls, followed by Drebyednyetsov, and although the new occupants are ejected, the bureaucrats’ intentions are revealed.
Drebyednyetsov has allocated the flat to Vava, with whom he is engaged in an affair, and plans to illegally join the two flats together to appease her and guarantee her devotion. Once our heroes discover this corruption, they retire to Sasha and Masha’s housewarming party in their flat, where the group agree to defeat Drebyednyetsov and Barbarashkin and put an end to their corruption.
Boris attempts to exploit a previous encounter with Vava by seducing her when he knows that Drebyednyetsov will see them, and so undermine their affair. His wily suggestion is rebuked by the others however, and they instead opt for a more fanciful resolution. Liusia, a construction worker from Cheryomuski helps our heroes to create a magic garden, within which sits a bench where only the truth can be told. Within this magic garden, the villains Drebyednyetsov and Barbarashkin confess their crimes and are vanquished, and our group of heroes go on to live a happy life within Cherry Town, Moscow.
To witness our heroes’ triumph over bureaucracy and corruption, and hear Shostakovich’s multifaceted composition, join us at Wales Millennium Centre on Sunday 9 October for two performances.