Opera «Katerina Ismailova»
by D.D.Shostakovich
G.P. Cogitov-Ergosumov
overview of the ideological content
Composed by Gnaeus Prokofyevich Cogitov-Ergosumov,
receiving a monthly salary of two rubles copper,
but for all those – eulogizing.
"It's time to give a small lesson for all the rulers and the supreme beings, which there are so many"
I.A. Efremov, "Hour of the Ox"
In the city Glupov
in the year of our Lord 1982,
from the beginning of the reign of 18.
From the publisher
From long time I wanted to get own name in literature. In this case, who knows, it all depends on luck. That's fortunate A.S.Pushkin – he found the manuscript of stories by Belkin, published – and become famous. Also N.V.Gogol fortunate to find scraps by Pasechnik Rudyj Panko, Saltykov-Shchedrin – find records of Glupov's archivist, and Bulgakov – notes by Maksudov. And all of them in this way made their names.
Then one hot days in August I returned from vacation and came to my institute. On my desktop lay a voluminous package, which was written: "For Nicholas Zharkikh". I ask my coworkers – who brought it, and nobody knew (well known thing, matched all summer on vacation, and apartments stand empty for all day…).
Less so, the package was addressed to me. Open it up, I found there two treatises by some Gnaeus Prokofyevich Cogitov-Ergosumov, one of which was devoted to opera "Katerina Izmailov", and the second – "The Golden Cockerel".
In subsequent years I did occasionally try to find this mysterious author, or find some information about him, but it was all in vain. So I decided to publish his treatises: there or their author will be found, or I shall take a literary glory as their publisher.
So, unlike Pushkin and Gogol, and not I found these pieces, but these works found me. My role reduced only arrangement HTML code formating and uploading documents to the site.
Nikolai Zharkikh, September 19, 2010.
Content
3. World view of the opera's characters
5. The project of well-intentioned trilogy
6. Basic properties of the inferno
7. "It's not life, only punishment…" (1st scene)
9. Love – also art (3rd scene)
10. Can Katherine "change her fate"?
11. Disordered lawlessness (4th scene)
12. Is it possible to defeat the evil of violence? (Passacaglia – the third intermission)
13. Humans are controlled by the ghosts (5th scene)
14. Is it possible to live in darkness?
15. Denunciation as a form of social consciousness (6th scene)
16. Institutionalized lawlessness (7th scene)
17. And who are the judges? (8th scene)
19. "The Holy Rus! not soon be washed away with rust Tatar you!"