"THE HUMAN VOICE" HAS BEEN PERFORMED AT THE BDT
Director Elizaveta Moroz premiered the play "The Human Voice" at G.A. Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater. This adaptation of the 1928 play of the same name by French poet and playwright Jean Cocteau is staged as a monoopera. The author once defined the play as "a drama about a woman abandoned by her lover, told in the form of a monologue, or rather a telephone dialogue with a man whose voice the audience cannot hear."
"I perceive separation and lack of communication as a literal catastrophe," notes Elizaveta Moroz. "Today, human loneliness is the most widespread social affliction: while we create and master new ways of connecting, we lose the skills of real-life communication. That's why, for me, the central theme of Jean Cocteau's 'The Human Voice' is the tragedy of man, who creates the illusion of communication and, ultimately, the illusion of real life."
A graduate of Andrejs Žagars' workshop at GITIS, Elizaveta Moroz is the curator of the theater department at the St. Petersburg Center for Culture and Arts "Dom Radio." Her career as a director is primarily associated with musical theater: her portfolio includes productions at the Bolshoi Theater and the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Musical Theater. Her recent productions include the opera "The Tales of Hoffmann" in Nizhny Novgorod, "Marina Tsvetaeva's Evening Meeting" in St. Petersburg, and the musical and theatrical ceremony "Hændel" as part of the Diaghilev Festival in Perm in 2025.
According to the creators, the production's primary expressive tool is intonation. Every exclamation and every pause is imbued with meaning. The director of the production enhanced this aspect by adding a musical dimension and offering her interpretation a "mono-opera" format. The music for the production was composed by Kirill Arkhipov, a laureate of international competitions.
The creative partnership between Elizaveta Moroz and Kirill Arkhipov formed several years ago. Their collaborations include the poetry slam "Ergot," presented at the Diaghilev Arts Festival in Perm in 2022, and the musical phantasmagoria "House 2/27," performed at the Dom Radio theater in 2023.
Polina Malikova plays the title role. Also appearing in the production are Ekaterina Bankovskaya (a student of Andrei Moguchy's workshop at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts), musicians Vera Ionova and Vladimir Rozanov (piano), Vitaly Bakunkin, Kirill Demidov, Anton Edemsky, Nikolai Podsevatkin, Yuri Tumanov, and Evgeny Filatov.
"I perceive separation and lack of communication as a literal catastrophe," notes Elizaveta Moroz. "Today, human loneliness is the most widespread social affliction: while we create and master new ways of connecting, we lose the skills of real-life communication. That's why, for me, the central theme of Jean Cocteau's 'The Human Voice' is the tragedy of man, who creates the illusion of communication and, ultimately, the illusion of real life."
A graduate of Andrejs Žagars' workshop at GITIS, Elizaveta Moroz is the curator of the theater department at the St. Petersburg Center for Culture and Arts "Dom Radio." Her career as a director is primarily associated with musical theater: her portfolio includes productions at the Bolshoi Theater and the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Musical Theater. Her recent productions include the opera "The Tales of Hoffmann" in Nizhny Novgorod, "Marina Tsvetaeva's Evening Meeting" in St. Petersburg, and the musical and theatrical ceremony "Hændel" as part of the Diaghilev Festival in Perm in 2025.
According to the creators, the production's primary expressive tool is intonation. Every exclamation and every pause is imbued with meaning. The director of the production enhanced this aspect by adding a musical dimension and offering her interpretation a "mono-opera" format. The music for the production was composed by Kirill Arkhipov, a laureate of international competitions.
The creative partnership between Elizaveta Moroz and Kirill Arkhipov formed several years ago. Their collaborations include the poetry slam "Ergot," presented at the Diaghilev Arts Festival in Perm in 2022, and the musical phantasmagoria "House 2/27," performed at the Dom Radio theater in 2023.
Polina Malikova plays the title role. Also appearing in the production are Ekaterina Bankovskaya (a student of Andrei Moguchy's workshop at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts), musicians Vera Ionova and Vladimir Rozanov (piano), Vitaly Bakunkin, Kirill Demidov, Anton Edemsky, Nikolai Podsevatkin, Yuri Tumanov, and Evgeny Filatov.
