An Unknown Ivan the Terrible Oratorio
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An Unknown Ivan The Terrible Oratorio Nelly Kravetz _______________ Published in "Three Oranges Journal" No 19 / May 2010 FEATURE: IVAN THE TERRIBLE Still from Eisenstein’s film Ivan the Terrible 2 An Unknown Ivan the Terrible Oratorio Nelly KRAVETZ Translated by Simon Morrison In the summer of 2006, I met Svetlana A Banned Film Levonovna Atovmian, the daughter of Levon Tadevosovich Atovmian, one of the most The eminent director Sergei Eisenstein received a commission influential individuals in the history of for Ivan Groznyi (Ivan the Terrible) on 11 January 1941, sixth Soviet music. Atovmian played a decisive months before the start of the Soviet phase of the Second World role in Prokofiev’s decision to relocate to the War. On 23 December he informed Prokofiev, who had been Soviet Union in 1936, and thereafter served evacuated from Moscow to Tbilisi, Georgia, that he was com- as the composer’s assistant, impresario, pleting the scenario and wanted Prokofiev to write the mu- and amanuensis, arranging his operas, sic. “Comrade composer”, the director noted, would be “given ballets, and oratorios. Atovmian was also great liberty in all aspects” of the scoring.1 Prokofiev worked a close friend who was deeply involved in with Eisenstein from June 1942 to the spring of 1943 in Alma- Prokofiev’s personal affairs. Ata, Kazakhstan, where the Mosfilm studios had been tempo- In 1964 Atovmian donated his rarily relocated on order of the Committee on Cinema Affairs; personal archive to the Glinka State Central they merged with the Lenfilm studios to become the Central Museum of Musical Culture (GTsMMK) in United Film Studio (TsOKS). On 14 July 1942 Eisenstein sent Moscow. During my meeting with Svetlana Prokofiev a so-called “thematic guide”, an itemisation of the Levonovna at her apartment in the House essential musical themes in Parts 1 and 2 of the film. In Alma- of Composers, on the side-street of Ata Prokofiev composed the “Oath of the Oprichniki”, the song Briusov, she asked if I would be interested “Ocean-Sea”, and the “Song of the Beaver” lullaby. The rest in perusing several manuscripts that her of the music was written in 1944-45, after he returned from father had not deposited at the archive evacuation. Filming of Part 1 of Ivan the Terrible resumed and but kept for himself. She fetched from the wrapped during this period. shelf a dusty, faded folder containing a On 9 January 1945, the Central House of Art Workers in Mos- manuscript with the inscription cow hosted a closed screening of Part 1; nine days later the “S. S. Prokofiev. Ivan the Terrible. Oratorio film began showing in Moscow cinemas. A year later, on 26 based on the film score of the same name. January 1946, it was awarded a first class Stalin Prize. On 2 Compiled and orchestrated by February 1946, Eisenstein finished work on Part 2 and submit- L. T. Atovmian. Full score”. ted the footage to a laboratory for editing. He was prevented This version of Prokofiev’s score has from reviewing the film by illness: at the Stalin Prize awards been hidden from history for almost fifty ceremony, Eisenstein suffered a major stroke. He asked a col- years. I received it as a gift from Svetlana league, the director Grigory Aleksandrov, to submit Part 2 Levonovna, who told me, in parting, “I’m for review to the Artistic Advisory Council of the Ministry of indebted to my father. Cinematography. Most of the members of the Council reacted He was not held in high regard during negatively, subjecting the film to harsh critique. The Council his life, despite his enormous service ordered revisions, but given his ill health, Eisenstein could to Soviet art. Do something to prevent not possibly carry them out. On 6 March 1946, by resolution of his name from being forever confined to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party, Part oblivion.” 2 of the film was banned from release based on its perceived This essay recounts the unknown anti-artistic and anti-historic content.2 history of the music of Ivan the Terrible, Two months later, on 14 May 1946, Eisenstein sent a per- from Prokofiev’s initial conception to sonal letter to Stalin beseeching him to watch Part 2. The Atovmian’s arrangement. director was dismayed that Stalin had not yet seen the film, 3 even though it had been ready for several months, because he illustrates than it reconstitutes events, sensations, and had reacted so benevolently to Part I.3 After watching Part 2, experiences, embodying in its own independent being Stalin called it a “loathsome thing”.4 In a resolution of 4 Sep- “visual” sequences, psychological subtexts, and even the tember 1946 concerning a film by another director, Bol’shaia vocal intonations of the characters. [...] Only in this way zhizn’ (The Great Life), Eisenstein found himself accused of can music become a crucial element of truly synthetic “ignorance in the portrayal of historical facts, having depict- film art.10 ed the progressive forces of Ivan the Terrible’s oprichniki as a gang of degenerates resembling the American Ku Klux Klan, The idea of arranging and performing the oratorio in con- and Ivan the Terrible — a person of strong will and character cert did not come idly to Stasevich. In 1945 at the Mosfilm — as weak in character and will, someone like Hamlet”.5 On studios, Prokofiev’s score for Ivan the Terrible was prepared and 25 February 1947, Stalin personally invited Eisenstein to the recorded under Stasevich’s direction. Prokofiev himself had Kremlin, along with Nikolai Cherkasov, the actor in the title suggested Stasevich for the task.11 What little is known about role, to assess the future prospects of the Ivan the Terrible. their relationship comes from Mira Mendelson’s unpublished It was agreed that Eisenstein would make major changes. He memoirs. On 11 September 1944 she recalled, “Conductor Stase- would revise the scenario; combine Part 2 of the film with the vich, speaking to Serezha by telephone, said ‘I kiss you firmly’. planned Part 3; abbreviate the footage; finish shooting the Serezha answered reservedly; he’s done so much for Stasevich, march on Livonia; alter the representation of the oprichniki; giving him the opportunity to conduct Alexander Nevsky and avoid excessive depiction of religious rituals, which added a his Sinfonietta in concert, and arranging it so that the studio patina of mysticism to the film; and depict the protagonist requested Stasevich to record the music of Ivan the Terrible not as “neurotic” but as a wise and decisive ruler. At the end — just when he was faced with having to leave Moscow for of the meeting Stalin wished them success, adding “May God lack of work. Absence of affection and (chiefly, I think) respect help you”.6 for Stasevich among musicians played a big part in this. He Ivan the Terrible Part 2 did not reach the screen until 1958, could never project the authority that is so essential for a ten years after Eisenstein’s death, and five after both Proko- conductor. Yet Serezha considers Stasevich talented, capable fiev’s and Stalin’s. of gleaning a composer’s intentions.”12 A year after the première, Mira Mendelson signed an agree- Why Stasevich? ment with the publishing house Sovetskii Kompozitor to print Stasevich’s arrangement of Ivan the Terrible in piano score.13 Unlike the music for Alexander Nevsky (1938), from which This attests to her esteem for Stasevich’s work, but she re- Prokofiev derived a cantata (1939), and the music for Lieu- frained from heaping praise on him. She recalled the following tenant Kizhe (1934), which he turned into an orchestral suite in her memoirs on 19 March 1962: “Phone calls: [...] A. Stase- (1934), Prokofiev did not arrange a concert version of Ivan the vich regarding the performance of the oratorio in Leningrad, Terrible. Not because the banning of Part 2 affected him as the enormous success, fabulous review. He complained that it’s composer: on the contrary, the prohibition should have moti- not being performed during the [Union of Soviet Composers] vated him to create a score for orchestral performance. Such Congress in Moscow and recommended my perhaps petitioning was Prokofiev’s approach to those works for stage and screen for it. I said that it’s not worth the effort. The oratorio has that were premiered belatedly or not at all.7 Perhaps Prokofiev been performed a few times now and will continue to be per- indeed planned a concert version of Ivan the Terrible, or per- formed. Stasevich is talented, of course, and he’s done a lot of haps “he rejected the idea without any explanation”.8 Either work, but he stresses far too often that, as he puts it, Proko- way, there were good reasons for his ultimately declining to fiev guided his hand.”14 reset the music apart from the film, including serious health problems (migraine headaches and high blood pressure); fear Why not Atovmian? of bringing unwanted attention to his involvement in a pro- hibited film; the sadly infamous Central Committee Resolution Together with this tale, another unfolded in complete se- of 10 February 1948, with its disastrous consequences; and crecy — replete with unanswered questions and unsolved mys- the unexpected death of Eisenstein a day after the publication teries. of the Resolution. Stasevich was believed to have been the first to assemble An oratorio on Ivan the Terrible was later fashioned — just an Ivan the Terrible oratorio. He was also presumably the first not by the composer. On 24 February 1961, at a meeting of the to rescue music not used in Eisenstein’s film: the solo contral- Secretariat of the RSFSR Union of Composers, the decision was to aria “Ocean-Sea” and the “Procession of the Young Ivan”.