Insert of a Brief Review of an Evening of Russian Poetry, Songs and other Audiences' Favorite performance pieces - New Light Temple - Squirrel Hill, Pa. 15217.

      Pittsburgh has about ten thousand Russian speaking inhabitants - most of whom live close to Squirrel Hill and most are Jewish but some are non-Jewish Ukrainians and some other people from the ex-Soviet Union Asian republics.
      Squirrel Hill's New Light Temple with its decent acoustics and brightly colored stained glassed windows makes a pleasant, small concert hall. The M.C introduced each performer in a professional manner as he gave a brief summation of most performed pieces. Russia and Soviet Union has always been an enormous source of great talents in all artistic endeavors.
      The first couple of songs of the evening were Russian romances - fashioned on the French genre - chanson. The lady performer's mezzo soprano sounded professional but the accompanying piano player did a fine job since she enhanced the singer rather than overpower her.
      Rita Rostyashevskaya - skillfully and easily delivered a couple famous "oretki" an artistic form consisting of his verses accompanied by his music since Alexander Vertinsky - a very well known, versatile artist - specialized in that form. He is famous till today even if somewhat controversial - nevertheless Vertinsky is widely performed in Russia and abroad - mainly in the Russian emigrees' circles.
      A big, husky vocalist - a strong tenor - Lev Zanderberg - sang three classic pieces widely performed in Russia, Eastern Europe and even in the lower East side of Jewish New York - since they were made famous by a legendary Soviet band leader - Leonid Utesev - so "Bublitchki", "Papirosen" and the internationally famous, huge hit - "Sierdtse" or "My Heart" - a Tango sounded very familiar to the audience; my mother always loved "Serdse" Tango and sang it to me many times when I was a child. I like the way Mr. Zandenberg made the audience sing along. Many Russian performers make the audience participate just like Mr. Zanenberg does - since they exude a special spirit of fun.
     The internationally well known poetry of Anna Akhmatova - a famous Russian poet - sounded terrific when read by Rita Rostashevskaya.
     A young debutante Aria Pauzulina - a blond haired beauty - performed a couple of songs with a great deal of energy. The first one was a famous Claudia Shulzenko's all time favorite - a magnificent waltz with the second number - a Tango which sounded as if taken from famous Lubov Uspenskaya's repertoire. Pauzulina's youthful enthusiasm - more than makes up for her need to train her voice a bit more and she could also use more skill in phrazing - necessary to smoothly deliver lyrics - nevertheless she shows a lot of promise since her love for performing - comes through to the audience.
     An M.C, Lev Zandenberg and another older actor - performed a fragment of a new play which will have a premiere on Dec. 20 - 2015 at the Squirrel Hill - J.C.C. The play deals with Russia's older generation's conflict with the younger people shown through the prism of the deeply changing Russia - from the Soviet Union's dictatorial order into the challenging, dangerous freedoms of the new Russia - rife with many conflicting - at times dangerous - nationalistic factions.
    In a nutshell - the evening was a lot of fun so look forward to some more reviews of this talented, cabaret style group of performers.

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