The premiere of “In My Chest a Bell…” was a sell-out.

MOSCOW, October 30. /TASS/. The premiere of Eldar Tramov’s performance “In My Chest a Bell…,” dedicated to the events of recent years and the people whose fates have been touched by the special military operation, was a sell-out on the Main Stage of the State Academic Theater named after Evgeny Vakhtangov, TASS correspondent reports.

Anton Prokhorov, Eldar Tramov, and Dmitry Trubochkin worked on the literary-stage composition. They focused on two themes — heroism and hope.

“These years that have passed since 2022 were extremely important so that the theater could accumulate the necessary worldview material and proceed to comprehend the special military operation in an artistic key. Not in a documentary sense — that is what historians and journalists do — but precisely in the space of art: through music, poetry, and drama. This approach requires time and careful selection of material, as well as special ways of working with it,” Trubochkin shared with journalists.

The performance is based on poetic and dramatic works of contemporary authors, fragments of military poetry and prose by Russian and Soviet writers. Among the latter are “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy and “The Living and the Dead” by Konstantin Simonov. In addition, among the literary material are poetry of the early 20th century (Alexander Blok, Ivan Bunin), poetry of the 1960s–1970s (Yuri Levitansky, Alexander Galich, Vladimir Vysotsky), poetry of 2022–2025 (Tatyana Koptelova, Anna Revyakina, Igor Efremov), and other works.

More than 40 actors of the troupe are involved in the production: People’s Artists of the Russian Federation (Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Marina Esipenko, Andrey Ilyin, Alexander Ryshchenkov, Olga Tumaykina), Honored Artists of the Russian Federation (Mikhail Vaskov, Maria Volkova, Andrey Zaretsky, Svetlana Yosefiy), young actors (Anna Antonova, Andrey Barilo, Vladislav Gandrabura, Vladimir Guskov, Evgenia Ivashova, Evgeny Kravchenko, Polina Kuzminskaya, Vladimir Logvinov, Artem Parkhomenko, Yuri Polyak, Pavel Popov, Polina Rafeeva, Yana Sobolevskaya, Pavel Yudin), and trainees.

Artists about the premiere work

“How does this theme concern me? My cousin died in the zone of the special military operation, three of my nephews are there. And since I live between Domodedovo and Vnukovo, practically every day the endless sounds of the work of air defense systems help me be ready for what we play on stage,” Marina Esipenko said after the preview of the performance.

Polina Rafeeva, in turn, shared that she could not stay away from the theme of the performance.

“I was influenced,” she says, “by the circumstance that my close friend, our colleague, the artist of the Vakhtangov Theater Vanya Zakhava, went to the front as a volunteer. And when it was announced that we would be doing such work, I realized that I could not remain indifferent. In this connection the question arose for me: ‘And what useful thing can I do for these events?’ Our task is to address people’s souls, to awaken them.”

Andrey Ilyin agreed with Rafeeva.

“This is not just a requiem, it is a performance-reflection, a performance-address to the audience. We would like indifference to disappear, for people to stop remaining indifferent, to get off their sofas and stoves and join what is happening. And what is happening, of course, is terrible. Now we are probably at the peak of relations with that side. <…> They have their own truth. But our truth is stronger and more powerful,” the actor stated.

Under the curtain

In the production team are set designer Maxim Obrezkov, composer Igor Popov, musical director Iya Mustafina, sound engineers Ruslan Knushevitsky, Anatoly Ibragimov, lighting designer Alexander Matveev, makeup artist Olga Kalyavina, and others. “An artist can help a warrior: he can give a ray of hope. First, by his very presence: know that you are not alone, they think about you, they are waiting for you… And second, by this important reminder that our profession preserves: there is music and poetry in the world — and hope lives in them,” the director concluded.

The nearest performances of “In My Chest a Bell…” will take place on November 24, December 25, and January 29. TASS is the general information partner of the theater.

https://tv.mail.ru/news/143079-teatr-vahtangova-vyipustil-posvyaschennyij-teme-svo-spektakl/