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Even with nine Grammy® Awards under their belt, the Emerson

String Quartet musicians aren’t content to rest on their laurels.

Already plenty famous for the exquisite music rendered on stages

across the world for several decades, the Quartet plans to stir it up

when it returns to Segerstrom Center with a bold new program that

dramatically fuses chamber music and theater.

Making its West Coast premiere in the Samueli Th eater on

May 14, Shostakovich and the Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy explores

the quest for nothing less than art, sanity and freedom from repression.

Th e program—co-created by Emerson violinist Philip Setzer

and theatrical director James Glossman—germinated from a

shared fascination with writer Anton Chekhov’s mystical tale, Th e

Black Monk, which became the inspiration for composer Dmitri

Shostakovich’s 50-year obsession with creating an opera that, alas,

never came to be.

Setzer quotes Chekhov, saying: “When a person is born, he can

embark on only one of three roads in life: if you go to the right, the

wolves will eat you; if you go left , you’ll eat the wolves; if you go

straight, you’ll eat yourself.

“Th is is a perfect description of the life of Shostakovich, as well

as the character Kovrin in Chekhov’s story,” says Setzer. And it’s this

confl ict that gives the program its bite, along with the rich layering of

stories and music.

Setzer fi rst became aware of Chekhov’s story when he worked with

his friend, Gerard McBurney on another music/theater collaboration

about Shostakovich called Th e Noise of Time. It was based on a novel

by Julian Barnes and featured the composer’s fi nal quartet, his 15th.

“Gerard told me that Shostakovich loved the story and had long

planned to write an opera based on it—but the project never came to

fruition,” Setzer added, who fi led the information away for another day.

“I’ve admired James Glossman’s work for years,” says Setzer. “I told

him about Shostakovich and Th e Black Monk, and he loved the idea of

creating something together. I planted the seed, but he took the idea

and wrote a brilliant script, masterfully interweaving Shostakovich’s

life with Chekhov’s story.” Unlike Shostakovich’s opera, the idea took

root.

For the unique event, suff ering, a pact with the devil and

redemption play out as Emerson and seven actors tell the story from

the viewpoint of Shostakovich. Less biopic than impressionistic, the

tale is set against the music of Shostakovich’s 14th Quartet and other

selections from his chamber music.

“We play the whole 14th Quartet over the course of the evening,”

says Setzer, “not in one stretch, but as the story of Th e Black Monk

unfolds, interspersed with other dramatic and musical elements.”

In Chekhov’s story, Kovrin, a mediocre scientist, begins seeing a

supernatural being—a monk in black robes—causing him to question

his sanity. Th e monk convinces Kovrin that he’s been chosen by God

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BY JAYCE KEANE

Haunting Shostakovich work gets new life by the Emerson String Quartet

A Tale of

Madnessand REDEMPTION

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the 14th Quartet, a portrait of the monk himself. The first movement

functions as an overture; the slow second movement accompanies

a monologue by Shostakovich’s wife, a kind of spoken “aria.” And

a reference to “Angel’s Serenade,” sung in the 1893 story, can also

be heard during the slow movement, which returns near the end of

Chekhov’s story.

“When I first read The Black Monk, I was struck by the fact that

Chekhov refers to someone singing Braga’s ‘Angel’s Serenade’ at a

party,” says Setzer. “I also read that Shostakovich referred in a letter to

‘that Italian thing’ in the slow movement of the 14th Quartet.

“I discovered that he’d made an arrangement of the Braga,” he

continues, “which Shostakovich clearly intended to incorporate into

his opera.” After several minutes of the third movement, the final

dramatic action aligns with the nostalgic concluding measures of the

14th Quartet.

“Sometimes the music functions symbolically,” Setzer adds. “For

example, the three percussive chords from the 8th Quartet recur in

the early stages of the drama. According to Mstislav Rostropovich and

others, if a person who couldn’t be trusted entered a café or restaurant,

someone would knock three times under a table—‘be careful what you

say!’ Elsewhere the music underscores the action, as it does in opera

and film.”

Shostakovich, haunted by Stalin’s tyrannical reign after the front-

page editorial, never dared write another opera, not even after the

dictator’s death. Yet in many ways, The Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy

is one of triumph in the face of overwhelming odds.

“There’s something in Shostakovich’s work that speaks to me in a

way almost no other music does,” Setzer asserts. “I just hope we have

managed, in our own modest and respectful way, to pay homage to the

opera Shostakovich dreamed of writing.”

Jayce Keane has been writing about the world of arts and culture for

more than 20 years. A longtime resident of California, she currently lives

in Colorado.

and blessed with a genius that will allow him to save mankind from

great suffering. But then the Black Monk disappears, and Kovrin feels

doomed to mediocrity.

Relationships with his loved ones unravel, and Kovrin’s physical

health swiftly deteriorates, bringing him to the brink of death, where

he experiences one final hallucination—the return of the black monk,

leading him toward an ethereal genius. Kovrin dies with a smile.

Chekhov’s final philosophical short story becomes intertwined

with scenes from Shostakovich’s life, resulting in a grand multimedia

homage to the highly controversial 20th-century dissident composer,

whose music was constrained and banned by Stalin’s Soviet regime.

Shostakovich became known for his heroic efforts to write protest

music, but also for his endless struggles. Brilliantly talented but

riddled with insecurities, he was also stubborn, refusing to give up his

vices (smoking, vodka and living a non-monogamous life), much less

his dream of creating an opera based on Chekhov’s tale.

But decades of suffering under the thumb of the oppressive Soviet

regime took its toll. Shostakovich spent years with a packed suitcase and

sleeping fully clothed, certain he would be whisked off to prison and

killed. Desperate, he groveled, composing public statements of contrition

(with occasional subversive subtext). He saved his more intimate thoughts

for his chamber music…but the opera never saw light.

Glossman’s script visits significant moments from Shostakovich’s

life, including notes he wrote on Chekhov’s story and his consuming

quest to do something with it musically. Much more than bullet

points, the script probes the life of a young Shostakovich, through

his marriage, divorce and subsequent journey into mental illness. His

story is one of genius—the good, the bad and the ugly.

The composer had a lot in common with Chekhov’s character,

Kovrin: paranoia, fear of failure, unsuccessful relationships and a

discontented life. Both struggled to maintain their sanity.

The program opens with the actors entering the stage, reciting,

“Muddle instead of music,” the headline of the infamous review written

by Stalin in the Russian newspaper Pravda, denouncing Shostakovich’s

otherwise successful 1934 opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

This marked the beginning of Shostakovich’s downward spiral.

He became a pariah in his own country, his music condemned by his

contemporaries as either “too Soviet” or “not Soviet enough.”

The actors settle onstage around the Emerson musicians, as the

music drives the story. The swirling passages of fast notes in the 14th

Quartet represent the Black Monk, linking the composer’s music to

Chekhov’s story. Other excerpts from Shostakovich’s string quartets

complement the two stories.

“I tried to carefully weave those passages into the complex tapestry

that Jim created,” notes Setzer.

The composer’s fascination with The Black Monk can be heard in

EMERSON STRING QUARTETSAMUELI THEATERDate: May 14Tickets: $49 and up

The Center applauds:The Colburn Foundation

For tickets and information visit SCFTA.org or call (714) 556-2787 Group services: (714) 755-0236