The Variety Theater and the Summer Garden: the intersection of parallels. The Variety Theater and the Summer Garden: the intersection of parallels Theater of masks, secrets and paradoxes, or “I love the theater, it is much more real than life!”

VARIETY THEATER

A fictional theater in the novel “The Master and Margarita”, with which an imaginary space is associated in the architectonics of the work. In the early editions of T.V. it was called “Cabaret Theatre”. Here a session of Woland's black magic takes place, followed by exposure. Exposure in in this case happens literally: the owners of the latest Parisian toilets, received from the devil in exchange for their modest Moscow dresses, after the session, in an instant, against their will, are exposed, as the fashionable Parisian rags disappear to God knows where. The prototype of T.V. was the Moscow Music Hall, which existed in 1926-1936. and located near the Bad Apartment at the address: Bolshaya Sadovaya, 18. Nowadays the Moscow Theater of Satire is located here. And until 1926, the Nikitin brothers’ circus was located here, and the building was specially built for this circus in 1911 according to the design of the architect Nilus. The Nikitin Circus is mentioned in “ Heart of a Dog" Let us note in this regard that T.V.’s program contains a number of purely circus acts, like the “miracles of the Julie family’s bicycle technology,” the prototype of which was the famous circus figure skaters of the Poldi (Podrezov) family, who successfully performed on the stage of the Moscow Music Hall. “Money Rain”, shed on the Variety audience by Woland’s henchmen, has a rich literary tradition. IN dramatic poem“Faust” (1808-1832) by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) in the second part, Mephistopheles, finding himself together with Faust at the emperor’s court, invents paper money, which turns out to be fiction. Another possible source is the passage in Travel Pictures (1826) by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), where the German poet satirically gives an allegorical account of the political struggle between liberals and conservatives, presented as the story of a Bedlam patient. The narrator explains the world's evil by saying that “the Lord God created too little money.” Woland and his assistants, distributing paper chervonets to the crowd, seem to make up for the imaginary shortage of cash. But the devil's chervonets quickly turn into ordinary paper, and thousands of T.V. visitors become victims of deception. For Woland, imaginary money is only a way to reveal the inner essence of those with whom Satan and his retinue come into contact. But the episode with the rain of chervonets in T.V. also has a closer date literary source- excerpts from the second part of the novel “Two Worlds” by Vladimir Zazubrin (Zubtsov) (1895-1937), published in 1922 in the magazine “Siberian Lights”. There, the peasants - members of the commune - decide to abolish and destroy money without waiting for a decree Soviet power. However, it soon becomes clear that money has not been abolished in the country, and then the crowd approaches the leaders of the commune, calls them deceivers and swindlers, threatens them with violence and wants to achieve the impossible - to return the already destroyed bills. In T.V. the situation is, as it were, mirrored. Those present at the black magic session first receive “supposedly money” (that was the name of one of the chapters of the early edition of the novel), which is mistaken for real money. When the imaginary money turns into worthless pieces of paper, the bartender T.V. Sokov demands that Woland replace it with full-fledged chervonets.

The daring words of the march, with which Koroviev-Fagot forces T.V.’s orchestra to end the scandalous session, are a parody of couplets from the popular in the 19th century. vaudeville “Lev Gurych Sinichkin, or Provincial Debutante” (1839) by Dmitry Lensky (Vorobyov) (1805-1860):

His Excellency

Calls her his

And even patronage

Gives it to her.

Bulgakov's couplets became even more humorous. They are addressed directly to the chairman of the Acoustic Commission, Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov, who demanded the exposure of black magic, but was exposed:

His Excellency

Loved poultry

And took under his protection

Pretty girls!!!

It is possible that the image with birds here was suggested to Bulgakov by the “bird name” of both the author, who wrote under the pseudonym Lensky, and the main character of the vaudeville.

T.V. in The Master and Margarita has quite deep aesthetic roots. In 1914, the manifesto of one of the founders of futurism, the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), “Music Hall” (1913), was published in Russian translation in No. 5 of the magazine “Theater and Art” under the title “Praise to the Variety Theater” (probably , such a transformation of the name prompted Bulgakov to replace the real Moscow Music Hall with the fictional T.V.). Marinetti, in particular, argued: “The Variety Theater destroys everything solemn, sacred, and serious in art. He contributes to the coming destruction immortal works, changing and parodying them, presenting them somehow, without any setting, without being embarrassed, as the most an ordinary thing... It is necessary to absolutely destroy all logic in variety show performances, noticeably exaggerate their extravagance, enhance contrasts and allow everything extravagant to reign on stage... Interrupt the singer. Accompany the singing of the romance with abusive and insulting words... Force the spectators of the stalls, boxes and galleries to take part in the action... Systematically profane classical art on stage, depicting, for example, all the Greek, French and Italian tragedies simultaneously in one evening, abbreviated and comically mixed together... Encourage in every possible way the genre of American eccentrics, their grotesque effects, amazing movements, their clumsy antics, their immense rudeness, their vests , filled with all sorts of surprises and pants, deep as ship holds, from which, along with a thousand objects, comes a great futuristic laugh, which should renew the physiognomy of the world.”

Bulgakov did not favor futurism and other theories of “leftist art”; he had a negative attitude towards the productions of V. E. Meyerhold (1874-1940) and the project of a monument to the Third International by V. E. Tatlin (1885-1953) (see: “Capital in a notebook” ). In the story " Fatal eggs"The theater named after the late Vsevolod Meyerhold, who died, as is known, in 1927 during the production of Pushkin's Boris Godunov, when the trapeze with naked boyars collapsed" is ironically mentioned. The author of “The Master and Margarita” strictly follows all the recommendations of the famous Italian. T.V. really destroys everything sacred and serious in art. The programs here are devoid of any logic, which is personified, in particular, by the entertainer Georges Bengalsky, who talks nonsense and is distinguished, like American eccentrics, by clumsiness and rudeness. Woland and his henchmen really force the stalls, the boxes, and the gallery to participate in the performance, encouraging the audience to determine the fate of the unlucky Bengalsky, and then to catch the chervonets falling like paper rain. Koroviev-Fagot makes sure that the march is accompanied by extravagant daring couplets and takes out from his pockets many objects that generate “great futuristic laughter” in the audience: from the watch of the financial director of the Variety Rimsky and a magic deck of cards to the devil’s chervonets and a Parisian store fashionable dress. How much is the cat Behemoth worth? drinking water from a glass or tearing off the head of a boring entertainer. Woland, setting up an experiment with money and the unlucky Georges of Bengal, tests Muscovites, finds out how much they have changed internally, and in his own way strives to “renew the physiognomy of the world.” And Bulgakov with his hands evil spirits punishes everyone involved in T.V. for vulgarization high art in the spirit of Marinetti’s calls, whose manifesto turns into a session of black magic. Director T.V. Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev is thrown out of his apartment by Woland to Yalta, administrator T.V. Varenukha becomes a victim of the vampire Gella and himself turns into a vampire, having difficulty getting rid of this unpleasant position in the finale. The same Varenukha and Gella almost killed the financial director T.V. Rimsky, who only miraculously escaped the fate that befell the administrator. T.V.’s audience is also punished, having lost both their ghostly Parisian outfits and their real Moscow ones. The paradox, however, is that Bulgakov, without sympathizing with futurism and other movements of “leftist” art, in “The Master and Margarita”, as in his other works, made extensive use of the grotesque, fearlessly confused genres and traditions of different literary trends and styles, willingly or unwillingly following Marinetti’s theory here. And the author of the novel loved eccentric clowns. “The Capital in a Notebook” mentions with admiration the clown Lazarenko, who in the Nikitin circus, a stone’s throw from the GITIS theater where Meyerhold staged his play, stuns the audience with “monstrous saltos.” Bulgakov was only against eccentricity replacing high performing arts, but did not mind if both were organically combined. In The Master and Margarita there is a high philosophical content quite appropriately adjacent to buffoonery, including in T.V.

Many of the realities of the black magic session in T.V. were not invented by Bulgakov, but were taken, as they say, from life. So, on August 4, 1924, one of the leaders of the OGPU, Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda, appearing as a guest at Satan’s Great Ball, sent out a secret circular to the localities, which said: “The Main Repertory Committee, by circular No. 1606 dated 15/7. g. gave a directive to all oblits and gublites... that when allowing sessions of the so-called “clairvoyants”, “thought readers”, “fakirs”, etc., they set the following indispensable conditions: 1) an indication on each poster that the secrets experiments will be disclosed, 2) so that during each session or at the end of it, the experiments are clearly and popularly explained to the audience, so that the average person there does not develop faith in other world, supernatural power and "prophets".

Local bodies of the OGPU must strictly monitor the fulfillment of these conditions, and in case of evasion and undesirable results, prohibit such sessions through oblits and gublites.”

But many readers of “The Master and Margarita” thought that the text of the posters “Today and every day at the Variety Theater is in addition to the program: Professor Woland. Sessions black magic with its complete exposure,” as well as the appearance after the scandalous session of people from a reputable institution on the Lubyanka - this is entirely a figment of Bulgakov’s imagination. In fact, the obligatory exposure of all sorts of “magic” on the theater or circus stage at that time was actually vigilantly monitored by such a serious institution as the OGPU.

The devilish store of French fashion during a session of black magic in T.V. is largely taken from a story popular at the beginning of the 20th century. writer Alexander Amfitheatrov (1862-1938) “St. Petersburg Smugglers” (1898), where an underground fashion store operates in the home of one of the famous smugglers women's dress, illegally imported into Russia.

But the episode with the Moscow ladies, seduced by the newfangled Parisian outfits, and then finding themselves on the street in only their nightgowns, has a very specific modern source. On September 17, 1937, E. S. Bulgakova wrote in her diary in connection with the just completed trip of the Moscow Art Theater troupe to Paris: “Some of our actresses, out of sheer naivety, bought long elegant nightgowns and put them on, believing that it was evening dresses. Well, they were quickly made to understand..."

The episode with Woland's chervonets in T.V. was one of the sources of the essay “The Legend of Agrippa” by the writer and symbolist poet Valery Bryusov (1873-1924), written for the Russian translation of J. Orsier’s book “Agrippa of Nettesheim: The Famous Adventurer of the 16th Century.” (1913). It was noted there that the medieval German scientist and theologian Agrippa of Nettesheim (1486-1535), according to his contemporaries, was a sorcerer, as if “often, during his travels... he paid in hotels with money that had all the signs of being genuine. Of course, upon the philosopher’s departure, the coins turned into manure. - Agrippa gave one woman a basket of gold coins; the next day the same thing happened to these coins: the basket turned out to be filled with horse manure.” After the Great Ball at Satan's, Woland gives a pack of chervonets to Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz's evil neighbor Annushka-Chuma, who unwittingly contributed to the death of the chairman of MASSOLIT and tried to steal what the devil gave to Margarita golden horseshoe- a symbol not only of happiness, but also of the devil’s hooves. This money then turns into dollars, which the police confiscated from Annushka. For the heroine, currency turned out to be as useless as dung for a woman supposedly blessed by Agrippa.

Bulgakov Encyclopedia. - Academician. 2009 .

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Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Variety Theater- a fictional variety and circus theater from Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”. On his stage, Woland organizes a session of black magic, accompanied by streams of “rain of money,” tearing off and returning the entertainer’s head, and changing clothes in the “Parisian fashion salon.” Among characters, involved in the theater or the performance organized by Woland - director Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev, financial director Grigory Danilovich Rimsky, administrator Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha, entertainer Georges Bengalsky, chairman of the acoustic commission Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov, barman Andrei Fokich Sokov, accountant Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin, courier Karpov.

In the first versions of the novel, the institution was called the Cabaret Theater. Its prototype was the Moscow Music Hall, which in 1926-1936 was located in the building former circus Nikitin brothers on Bolshaya Sadovaya, 18. The building is currently occupied by the Satire Theater troupe.

Black magic session

According to researchers, some storylines, associated with a session of mass hypnosis, appeared as a result of observation of the artist original genre Nicholas Ornaldo, who performed illusion theater in music halls, cinemas and cultural centers in the 1930s. His program included card tricks, “sawing” assistants, “treatment” sessions and other tricks.

Critics were skeptical of Ornaldo's performances; Thus, a reviewer for “Krasnaya Gazeta” wrote that his program “is furnished in the spirit of the oldest traditions - that is, the performance of a miracle worker, a seller of happiness, a healer who cures drunkenness, smoking, doubts and God knows what other assortment of ailments.”

In addition, the creation of the chapter about the black magic session could have been influenced by impressions from the performances that were given in the music hall foreign artists. In the arsenal of the Greek Costano Kasfikis there was a trick called the “money factory”: the artist put white sheets of paper into the machine and, after short manipulations, showed the audience “real” bills. Danish-American Dante (Harry Jansen), who toured Moscow in 1928, performed in Mephistopheles makeup; he looked at the audience “with the condescending smile of a devil-philosopher.”

The image of Georges Bengalsky is collective, but researchers have discovered similarities between this character and the Moscow entertainer Georgy (Georges) Razdolsky and music hall artist Alexander Grill. Grill's demeanor was reminiscent of Bengalsky's style of communication: he half-jokingly shuffled in front of the audience, loved “gallant half-bows”; his remarks were accompanied by “excitedly joyful rubbing of hands.”

Researchers have different opinions about who is the possible prototype of one of the most notable spectators of the Variety Theater - the head of the Acoustic Commission of Moscow Theaters Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov. Thus, the author of the book “Bulgakov’s Moscow” Boris Myagkov is convinced that the search for a prototype should begin with the character’s place of work; in reality, the acoustic commission did not exist in Moscow, but there were institutions close to it in departmental functions. Bulgakov knew their leaders well; thanks to this, the image of Sempleyarov “formed”.

A different version is put forward by the compiler of the Bulgakov Encyclopedia, Boris Sokolov. He believes that Sempleyarov’s “main prototype” was the party and statesman Avel Enukidze, who headed the commission for the management of the Bolshoi and Art Theaters and was distinguished by his biased attitude towards young actresses:

Literary parallels

The theme of the “money rain” that fell on the audience during the session goes back to “Faust”; this episode is akin to the scene from the second part of the poem, during which Mephistopheles creates fictitious bills. At the same time, Bulgakov scholars note a parallel with Heinrich Heine’s “Travel Pictures”; In the work of the German poet and publicist, one can see the idea that “the Lord God created too little money.”

Bulgakov could have been inspired to create a “salon of French fashion” on the Variety stage by Alexander Amfiteatrov’s story “The Smugglers of St. Petersburg”; its plot is built around an illegal “home” store, where you can buy “fashionable and haberdashery” goods exported from abroad.

The final chord of a black magic session is a “daring march” performed especially for Sempleyarov: “His Excellency / Loved poultry / And took under his protection / Pretty girls!” The text of these couplets from Dmitry Lensky’s vaudeville “Lev Gurych Sinichkin, or the Provincial Debutante” was well known to Bulgakov: they were performed at the Vakhtangov Theater by Ruben Simonov. Having included couplets in his novel, the writer modified them; in the original they sound like this: “Her Excellency / Calls her his / And even protects / Shows her” .

The episode when Variety director Styopa Likhodeev finds himself in Yalta has an “obvious connection” with Mikhail Zoshchenko’s story “Earthquake”: his hero Snopkov, having drunk “a bottle and a half of bitters,” fell asleep in the yard on the eve of a series of Crimean earthquakes. Having come to his senses, Snopkov could not recognize either the city or the streets and therefore turned to passers-by with a question about where he was.

The expulsion of Likhodeev from Moscow is associated with the manifesto of the futurist Marinetti, who believed that “the Variety Theater destroys everything solemn, sacred, and serious in art”:

From the day when Pierre, leaving the Rostovs and remembering Natasha’s grateful look, looked at the comet standing in the sky and felt that something new had opened up for him, the question that had always tormented him about the futility and madness of everything earthly ceased to appear to him. This terrible question: why? for what? - which had previously presented itself to him in the middle of every lesson, was now replaced for him not by another question and not by an answer to the previous question, but by a presentation of her. Whether he heard or carried on insignificant conversations, whether he read or learned about the meanness and senselessness of people, he was not horrified as before; did not ask himself why people bother when everything is so brief and unknown, but remembered it in the form in which he saw it in last time, and all his doubts disappeared, not because she answered the questions that presented themselves to him, but because the idea of ​​her instantly transported him to another, bright area of ​​mental activity, in which there could be no right or wrong, to the area of ​​beauty and a love that was worth living for. No matter what everyday abomination presented itself to him, he said to himself:
“Well, let such and such rob the state and the tsar, and the state and the tsar give him honors; and yesterday she smiled at me and asked me to come, and I love her, and no one will ever know this,” he thought.
Pierre still went out into society, drank just as much and led the same idle and distracted life, because, in addition to those hours that he spent with the Rostovs, he had to spend the rest of his time, and the habits and acquaintances he had made in Moscow , irresistibly attracted him to the life that captured him. But in Lately, when more and more alarming rumors came from the theater of war and when Natasha’s health began to improve and she ceased to arouse in him the former feeling of thrifty pity, he began to be overcome by a more and more incomprehensible anxiety. He felt that the situation in which he found himself could not last long, that a catastrophe was coming that would change his whole life, and he impatiently looked for signs of this approaching catastrophe in everything. Pierre was revealed by one of the Freemason brothers the following prophecy regarding Napoleon, derived from the Apocalypse of John the Theologian.
In the Apocalypse, chapter thirteen, verse eighteen, it is said: “Here is wisdom; Let those who have intelligence respect the number of animals: the number is human, and its number is six hundred and sixty-six.”
And of the same chapter in verse five: “And a mouth was given unto him, saying great things and blasphemous things; and he was given the domain of creation for a month of four to ten and two.”
French letters, like the Hebrew number image, according to which the first ten letters stand for units, and the rest tens, have the following meaning:
a b c d e f g h i k.. l..m..n..o..p..q..r..s..t.. u…v w.. x.. y.. z
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