The Master and Margarita - Music

Mikhail Novitsky - Margarita (Woland's song)

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In June 2021, a fan of this website posted a message on our page at vKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. It was a music video with a brief commentary: Песня Воланда [PesnYa Volanda] or Woland's song. At first I thought it was a new song, but it turnED out to be from 2013, and it was made by Mikhail Novitsky.

After having done some research, it doesn't seem exaggerated to me to describe Mikhail Valentinovich Novitsky (°1963), from Brailov, Ukraine, as an artistic centipede. He is a composer, singer, actor, director, writer, poet, illustrator and painter. He is also very versatile musically. He plays rock and roll and reggae with ease, and sometimes he seems to be a real Russian bard. He shows his predilection for the latter genre as the organiser of the annual Lampushka Festival, which he has been organising since 2001 in memory of the well-known Russian bard Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (1938-1980), at the spot where the latter held a legendary - forbidden - concert in 1972.

Novitski is also socially and politically active. Since 2000 he has been the driving force of the climate movement Зелёная волна [Zelyonaya volna] or Green Wave. He can also often be seen at meetings of the Russian opposition. For example, in 2015, he released the satirical song Путин, хэллоу! [Putin, helloj!] or Putin, hello! during a demonstration in support of the brothers Alexei and Oleg Navalny, and his song Путин, лыжи, Магадан [Putin, lyzhi, Magadan] or Putin, skiing, Magadan became a kind of anthem of the opposition. Magadan is a city in the far east of Russia, notorious for its Gulag labor camp. So it should come as no surprise that Novitsky's concerts are regularly banned.

Novitsky created its own Mikhail Novitsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. With that company he organised the spectacle Woland and Margarita on 20 December 2013 on the occasion of his own 50th birthday. He said he had been playing with that idea for 12 years, and he himself played the part of Woland.

A special part of this spectacle was the song Маргарита (Песня Воланда) [Margarita (Pesnya Volanda)] or Margarita (Woland's song). On this page you will find a video of a live version, and two recordings for CD, one in Russian, and one in English.