Word: vova
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...IDIOT (Sony Classical) evokes a world of Russian literature -- Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Pushkin -- but the real impetus for this new opera by Russia's finest living composer is a powerful short story by the former underground author Victor Erofeyev. Any political resonance in the tale of an idiot named Vova (Lenin's nickname), who moves in with a hapless couple and destroys their lives, is, of course, purely intentional. Schnittke limns the moral and social breakdown of "I" and his "Wife" in a score of terrifying, eclectic intensity. The first-rate performance, recorded live at the premiere last year in Amsterdam...