Life with an Idiot is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 by the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n composer Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...

. The libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 is by Viktor Erofeyev

Victor Erofeyev

Victor Vladimirovich Erofeyev is a Russian writer. As son of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat Vladimir Erofeyev, he spent some of his childhood in Paris, which accounts for why much of his work has been translated from Russian into French, while comparatively little has reached English.Erofeyev...

. It was first performed at Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 on 13 April 1992. The opera is an allegory

Allegory

Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...

 of Soviet oppression.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast Conductor: Mstislav Rostropovich Mstislav Rostropovich Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...
I	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or... s	Dale Duesing/Romain Bischoff
Wife	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Teresa Ringholz
Vova	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Howard Haskin
Guard	bass	Leonid Zimnenko
Marcel Proust Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...	baritone	Robbin Leggate

Act One

As a punishment for not working hard enough, "I" is forced by the authorities to live with an idiot. He chooses Vova from a lunatic asylum. Vova is only capable of speaking a single word: "Ech".

Act Two

At first Vova behaves well but then he suddenly begins to make a nuisance of himself, including tearing up I's wife's copy of the works of Marcel Proust. I and his wife go to live in another room and Vova calms down. I's wife falls in love with Vova and becomes pregnant by him. Then Vova and I turn on the wife. Vova kills her and I becomes an idiot.

Recordings

• Life with an Idiot (live recording of premiere cast), Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Rostropovich (Sony)

Sources

• The Viking Opera Guide, ed. Holden (Viking, 1993).
• Penguin Guide to Opera on Compact Discs (Penguin, 1993).
• Del Teatro (in Italian).
• Amadeus Online.