Rukopis Mastera - 2010
Master Musicals Tambov
In July 2010, a major advertising campaign in Moscow called on people to participate in the auditions for Рукопись Мастера [Rukopis Mastera] or The Manuscript of the Master. It claimed to be «the first and only Russian musical» based on The Master and Margarita. The initiative proved to be coming from the production company Master Musicals from Tambov, a city 400 km southeast of Moscow.
The project was presented as a sympathetic and spontaneously bubbled initiative of a group of enthusiastic young people, for which the PR was developed by students of the Tambov Technical State University. But the extent of the marketing efforts and the professional videos and posters made soon apparent that there were not only amateurs implied in this project. Indeed, successful writer Oleg Roy proved to have been hired as artistic director, and the list of funds providers includes the Ministry of Culture of the Tambov Oblast, and the administration of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. The then Prime minister Vladimir Putin himself would soon appear a few times between the youngsters in the preliminary television news items about the event to express his confidence in the production.
Composer Andrey Pronin was hired to write the music, author Tatiana Malikova was asked to write the libretto, and Igor Tishkin's show-ballet Flash to do the choreography. The direction was in the hands of Pyotr Kulikov and Dmitri Isaychev, who would both be acting in the piece as well, the first as Pontius Pilate, the second as Woland.
Ultimately, the musical became a very clean performance with a high Up With People level. The sets, costumes and lighting were beautiful and well taken care of, the music was professionally performed, but rather predictable and not very varied. That's why we did not publish all the songs on this site, just the Overture. If you would want to listen to all tracks, you can download a *. zip file using the arrow below.
Rukopis Mastera - Overture
More tracks
Click on the arrow below to download all the songs of the musical Rukopis Mastera.
Poster for Rukopis Mastera
Technical details
Directors
Dmitri Isaychev
Pyotr Kulikov
Cast
The Master - Dmitri Cherbaev
Margarita - Diana Gerasimova
Woland - Dmitri Isaychev
Pontius Pilate - Pyotr Kulikov
Matthew Levi - Eduard Khachyaryan
Video
Click on the arrow below to watch a flash mob organised during the promtion campaign for Rukopis Mastera in 2010.