The starting point for the opera is Chekhov’s little known short story A Visit to Friends, written in 1898 almost as a study for The Cherry Orchard, which Chekhov had hesitated to publish because he felt its central character was too autobiographical. The story was used by William Boyd, together with My Life (1896), as the basis for his play Longing.

 

There are four characters, who are rehearsing for the first performance of a recently discovered opera by an unknown Russian composer, with words by Chekhov, written around 1903. They are: Natalie, who in the opera plays the part of Nadia (soprano), Vanessa who plays Varia (mezzo), and Marcus, who plays Misha (baritone). The fourth character is the director, Gregor (bass baritone). There is also an onstage rehearsal pianist, Chris.

 

The rehearsals are of four scenes from the ‘opera’, which stand apart from, but are gradually intertwined with, the real-life interaction between the singers. They begin to mirror the relationships portrayed in the four scenes: two women both in love with a man who cannot commit himself. The increasingly tense entanglement of the protagonists results in the production being abandoned. (The director, who frequently intervenes in the rehearsal scenes, also appears in a non-singing role as Chekhov in a Prologue and Epilogue.) The action moves freely between studio and stage rehearsals so that the time frame is often changing.

 

The four scenes were written and composed before the framework of the opera had begun to take full shape. Stylistically they are freely modelled on the Scriabin of the early 1900s (Scriabin visited Chekhov in Yalta in 1903), and include reworked elements of works written around that time, including the Fourth Sonata. This has inevitably if indirectly influenced the language of the framing opera, which, like the characters, increasingly mirrors the internal opera. Vanessa’s final aria in Scene 10 almost functions as a fifth scene from the ‘opera’.

 

The orchestra is a chamber orchestra - single wind (2 clarinets), 2 horns, harp, and strings (no more than 6-4-4-4-2). It is envisaged as a single act with 10 scenes, approximately 90 minutes in duration.

 

C.M.