Levsha

Nikolai Leskov’s The Lefthander is a popular Russian short story eminently suitable as the subject of an opera. The plot is grotesque and exaggerated but this is contrasted by striking and expressive characters. The two Tsars, Alexander I and Nikolai I, make an appearance in the tale, which also incorporates the Winter Palace, the English court, a burlesque comedy, a tragedy, laughter and tears. A closer examination of this work reveals the skillful juxtaposition of two different worlds: British rationality and Russian irrationality.

Then there is the protagonist of the story, a cross-eyed, uneducated crafts man from Tula ‘with golden hands’. This figure, it seems to me, is a combination of the salient and typical aspects of the Russian national character: individualised talent, quick thinking, self-irony, an indifference to life and a fatal passion for alcohol. This is paired with the eternal Russian theme, authority versus the common people. A genius unrecognised in his own country. I composed the opera for the inauguration of the new stage at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Mariinsky II. The opera will be directed and conducted by Valery Gergiev, who is also the dedicatee of the opera. Rodion Shchedrin