Sergio Rubini - Shostakovich's glasses

Sergio Rubini is the protagonist of this theatrical show at the all'Auditorium Parco della Musica dedicated to Dmitrij Šostakovič, the great Russian composer (1906-1975) who lived during the Stalinist regime, which Rubini interprets masterfully.

The play is by Valerio Cappelli, who, also directing the play, wanted to pay homage to the great composer who loved his homeland despite its control and restrictions. The director explained his choice of title, Shostakovich's glasses, because he was struck by his gaze. Against a stark, essential setting, Rubini-Shostakovich's monologue brings to the surface the composer's memories, as he recounts, in the first person, the key moments of his life not in chronological order, but following the events that followed, along with his deepest emotions and underlying fears.

During the performance, we discover that Shostakovich's life was precariously balanced between great honors and great humiliations: he was the most decorated and misunderstood composer, the most awarded and threatened. He had to contend with the pressures of power, trying to maintain his artistic truth. He received a state funeral but was accused of formalism by the Pravda and interrogated several times in an effort to extract information. He was also accused by Pravda of formalism, violating the Communist Party's diktat requiring patriotic musical works celebrating socialist realism and revolutionary optimism. When the Ninth Symphony, intended as the Soviet response to Beethoven's Ninth, was commissioned, Shostakovich wrote a short, mocking twenty-minute composition.

The story is accompanied by his music, which defines and represents him, along with full-screen images of that era, which recreate its visual and musical atmospheres.

Photo: official poster of the show