The Children of Rosenthal

Set in USSR during the post-World War II era, the opera tells the story of clones of great composers: Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Verdi, and Mozart.

[3] Eduard Boyakov and Peter Pospelov initiated the project and lobbied the Bolshoi Theatre's administration.

In 2002 a contract was signed, with Leonid Desyatnikov scheduled to compose the opera, and Vladimir Sorokin to write the libretto.

When Desyatnikov met with Sorokin, the latter proposed, "Let's write an opera about clones of classic composers".

[5] Desyatnikov and Sorokin selected two Russians and three non-Russians as composers most representative of the opera genre: Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky.

[5] Scene 1 In the beginning of the first act a silent film is shown, which explains the story of Alex Rosenthal, a talented scientist who escaped from Nazi Germany to the USSR in the 1930s.

The clones of Wagner, Verdi, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky sleep in hammocks near the scientific center.

Wagner wakes up and describes a nightmare: the beautiful swan transformed into a rain of worms.

A line of USSR's leaders' portraits appears, supported by their speeches showing the gradual reduction of the government's interest in the cloning project.

The Departing Passengers, Taxi Drivers, the Refugee, Gamblers, the Hobo, Prostitutes, and Traders each sing songs.

[8] The libretto is the conceptual base that supports musical structure, by dividing the opera into scenes which imitate the appropriate composer's style.

The fourth scene links to Verdi's works by the love duet of Mozart and Tanya and by phrases in Italian.

Some members of the Russian parliament described the state-funded Bolshoi's first new opera in more than 30 years as pornographic, vulgar and unsuitable for such a venerable institution.

[11] State Duma deputies from the United Russia party instructed parliament's culture committee to launch an inquiry into the opera.