Sergej Newski: The Simple Ones

Sergej Newski: Die Einfachen

Documentary opera for five singers, electronics and video (2020/21)

Libretto by Sergej Newski
based on letters from Russia after 1920, discovered and published by Ira Roldugina
Composition: Sergei Nevsky
Video, stage and direction: Ilya Shagalov
Live electronic realization: Alex Nadjarov

Neue Vocalsolisten
Truike van der Poel, mezzo-soprano
Daniel Gloger, countertenor
Martin Nagy, tenor
Guillermo Anzorena, baritone
Andreas Fischer, bass

Actors:inside in the video:
Igor Bychkov, Gladston Mahib, Savva Savelyev, Uliana Lukina
Camera for the video: Artur Bergart

In post-revolutionary Leningrad in the 1920s, the gay subculture, which included workers, small employees and students, called itself »The Simple Ones«. In rediscovered letters to the famous psychiatrist Vladimir Bekhterev, published in 2016 by the researcher Ira Roldugina, the picture unfolds of a generation that tried to find a language for the newly discovered physical freedom and at the same time to reflect it critically. The documentary opera revives the fates of a farmer, a student and a teacher as a »tribute to a fascinating generation trying to preserve its dignity under extreme challenges of its time.«

The documentary opera DIE EINFACHEN by Sergej Newski was premiered at the 2021 »Summer in Stuttgart« festival at the Theaterhaus Stuttgart.