On Sat. June 09 - 2018 - Anatoly Shvartsman presented a multi-media show - a tribute to the Soviet/Russian songs from the Soviet/Russian movies from - roughly - 1930 till today. The conveniently located venue of a small concert hall at the JCC of Squirrel Hill (an exclusive part of Pittsburgh, Pa.) - actually turned out to be suitable location for this presentation.
According to our reviews' spirit of keeping our numerous "clickers/readers" attention in focus - we shall follow our popular in Chicago - formula. At first we shall point out some areas in which the show could be improved - then we will "sing the praises" of the numerous, successful parts of the show.
The whole presentation was a little long which consisted of over two hours with an intermission. An hour and a half with an intermission would be quite enough. In addition - some group numbers were also too long - since they "dragged" - while most other long group numbers were funny and sparkling.
My favorite piece was a song done professionally by Tatyana Khelemskaya titled "Love is a Magical Country" from the Soviet movie titled "A Cruel Affair." The lyrics strike a strong cord with all the people who experience love - which is at least ninety seven percent of all the humans. The lyrics go something like "Love is a Magical country where everybody is either a traitor or a backstabber - sooner or later". We venture to postulate that the lyricist's - Mr. Ryazanov's love life was not going entirely smoothly. The whole package - however - the lyrics plus the music plus the vocals - all came out - really - top notch. It was a sad song -nevertheless - which will provoke some pondering on the nature of love - one of the biggest "highs" of human experiences.
A lot of excellent love songs talk about the "fleeting" nature of love and happiness. A famous, celebrated, beautiful, multi-talented Polish chanteusse - Countess Hanka Ordon-Tyszkiewicz (b. Warsaw 1902 - d. Beirut, Lebanon 1950 - ("Ordonka"as she is affectionately called by millions of Poles - her permanent fans) wrote lyrics to her famous Polish love song from 1929 titled "If You're Fond of My Caresses" - Youtube's presentation of 240252 on June 09 - 2018 - the lyrics say something like "Our lives go like a moment when strongly in love - you will have a few beautiful remembrances - when it's over - always too soon."
In addition to some sad songs - the Pittsburgh Russian Theater Presentation also offers tons of joyous Russian/Soviet pieces which make one's heart - sing with joy of living. Several folk songs presented - were the so called "chastushkys" which capture the spirit of Russian folk musical expressions - to which the audiences invariably - respond positively - especially people like me who know the rich Russian and Soviet - cultures.
Mr. Anatoly Shvartsman needs to make a second and a third part to the shows themed - famous songs from famous movies - perhaps an international theme might also be an interesting concept.
Copyright@L.Hadley and Associates 2018
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