Alexander Nikolaevich Vertinsky (March 21 (April 2) 1889, Kyiv - May 21, 1957, Leningrad. Buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery) - Russian singer-chansonnier, poet, composer, artist.
Childhood. First creative experiences
Parents, Nikolai Petrovich Vertinsky and Evgenia Stepanovna Skolatskaya, were not officially married. The children (son Alexander and daughter Nadezhda) were officially adopted by their father. When Sasha Vertinsky was three years old, his mother died, and two years later his father died of transient consumption. The brother and sister were taken into care by their mother's sisters in different families. Preventing their communication in every possible way, the aunts told Alexander a deliberate lie about his sister’s death. Brother and sister met as adults.
Already in his high school years, Alexander Vertinsky became interested in theater, performed in amateur performances and as an extra on the stage of the Kyiv Solovetsky Theater.
The development and creative style of Alexander Vertinsky began to take shape in the Kiev literary collection of Sofia Nikolaevna Zelinskaya. Many interesting people gathered in her house - poets Mikhail Kuzmin, Vladimir Elsner, artists Alexander Osmerkin, Kazimir Malevich, Marc Chagall, Nathan Altman.
During this period, Alexander Vertinsky tried to engage in literary work; his stories appeared in the newspaper “Kievskaya Nedelya” - “Portrait”, “Cigarettes “Spring””, “My Bride”, and in the weekly “Lukomorye” - the story “Red Butterflies”. The young poet writes theatrical reviews of the performances of major celebrities - Chaliapin, Vyaltseva, Vavich, Anselmi, Karinskaya, Ruffo. His name becomes famous among the Kyiv creative intelligentsia.
On the Moscow stage. To the cinema.
In 1909-1910 Alexander Vertinsky moved to Moscow, trying to find himself and make a career, played small roles in fashionable plays in small studios and circles, and tried to stage Blok’s play “Balaganchik.”
At the beginning of 1912, Alexander Vertinsky entered the miniature theater of M. A. Artsibusheva, where he performed small parodies. One of Vertinsky’s first works was a number called “Tango”: a ballet couple danced the tango, and Vertinsky, standing in the wings, performed a parody song of the action on stage. The performance was a success, and for the first time the artist saw a tiny review in the press: one and a half lines in the Russian Word. In 1913, he tried to fulfill his dream - to enter the Moscow Art Theater, but was not accepted due to a defect in diction: Konstantin Stanislavsky himself took the exam, and he did not like that the young man could not pronounce the letter “r” well.
Since 1912, Alexander Vertinsky successfully acted in silent films (“The King Without a Crown”, “From Slavery to Freedom”, “How People Live”), on the set he became friends with the stars of Russian cinema of the early 20th century. - Ivan Mozzhukhin and Vera Kholodnaya. One of the scripts was based on Vertinsky’s poem “The Lord’s Ball.”
During the same period, Alexander Vertinsky met Vladimir Mayakovsky and performed in a futurist cafe with him, but futurism had little influence on Vertinsky’s work. The world of the futurists, their philosophy and creative position were not close to Vertinsky. He was more influenced by the poetry concerts of Igor Severyanin. World War I. Birth of Pierrot. During the First World War, at the end of 1914, Alexander Vertinsky went as a volunteer orderly on a train that ran between the front line and Moscow and served until the spring of 1915, when, after being slightly wounded, he returned to Moscow.
After returning to Moscow, Vertinsky began performing at the Artsibusheva Theater of Miniatures, but with his own number, “Songs of Pierrot.” As “Pierrot arietes,” Alexander Vertinsky performed his poems, which he set to music, most often of his own composition: “Little Creole,” “Lilac Negro,” “Your fingers smell like incense” (dedicated to Vera Kholodnaya), “Gray-Eye,” “Minutochka” ", "I'm laughing at myself today", "Behind the Scenes", "Smoke without Fire", "Crystal Dirge", "Bankless", "The Lord's Ball", "Dog Douglas", "About Six Mirrors", "Jameis", “I am a little ballerina” (co-authored with N. Grushko), “Cocainete” (words by V. Agatov).
Alexander Vertinsky performed with his songs at the Petrovsky Theater, in the Firebird cabaret, and in miniature theaters. Criticism quickly responded to Vertinsky’s growing success (articles by S. Gorodetsky and B. Savinich in the newspapers “Ramp and Life” and “Teatralnaya Gazeta”).
The cycles of poems by Alexander Vertinsky were born as “variations on a theme”; they are characterized by the transfer of human emotions to inanimate objects, the use of exotic names and comparisons as an attempt to weaken or completely remove the overwhelming sense of the materiality of the world. At the same time, in his poems he sought to show that a misunderstood, lonely person is defenseless in the face of a huge, ruthless world. That is why Vertinsky’s songs turned out to be “fit for anyone”, everyone could see themselves in them. He got rid of the traditions of Russian romance, which had already become routine, and offered the stage another song related to the aesthetics of the latest trends in art and culture, and, above all, an original artistic song.
Vertinsky managed to create a new genre that had not yet appeared on the Russian stage. Alexander Vertinsky’s special style, the stage mask, was also attractive to the public. From mid-1915 to the end of 1917, the artist performed in the makeup of a sad Pierrot. It would seem that white Pierrot was not suitable for singing lyrical and even tragic songs about love, friendship and death, because Pierrot is a buffoon of the French version of the commedia dell'arte. However, the art of the Silver Age was characterized by the search for a mask, a unique image in art. The viewer went “to the mask”, and a variety of artists sought to use it: Mayakovsky’s yellow jacket, Blok’s velvet blouse and curls, Severyanin’s exotic pose - all this is a search for a mask, a unique place in art.
The choice of Alexander Vertinsky’s stage mask was influenced by Blok’s poetry, which Vertinsky was very keen on, in particular the play “Balaganchik” and the cycle of poems “Masks”. Although the artist himself claimed that this makeup was born spontaneously, when he and other young orderlies gave small “home” concerts for the wounded, and was necessary on stage solely because of a strong feeling of uncertainty and confusion in front of a crowded hall. This mask helped the artist get into character. His Pierrot is a comical sufferer, naive and enthusiastic, always dreaming about something, a sad jester, in whom true suffering and true nobility are visible through his comical manner. From the very first moments of his appearance on stage, Vertinsky took the audience into his ghostly world. The impression was complemented by skillfully created scenery and moonlight.
The image of black Pierrot appeared later: the deathly white makeup on his face was replaced by a domino mask, Pierrot’s white suit was a completely black robe, the only white spot on which was a neckerchief. The new Pierrot became more ironic and sarcastic in his songs than before, because he had lost the naive dreams of his youth and saw the everyday simplicity and indifference of the world around him.
Success. Refusal of the Pierrot mask
In 1916, Alexander Vertinsky already enjoyed all-Russian popularity. By 1917, the artist had traveled to almost all major cities of the Russian Empire, where he performed with constant success. During this period, he abandoned the Pierrot mask and began performing in a concert tailcoat, in which he performed all his life, never deviating from this stage costume, which also became a kind of mask.
Leaving the “mediocre country”
After the revolution of 1917, Alexander Vertinsky came to the conclusion that he could not get along with the new government. Vertinsky’s romance “What I Must Say,” written under the impression of the death of three hundred Moscow cadets, aroused the interest of the Extraordinary Commission, where the artist was summoned to give an explanation. There is a legend that when Vertinsky indignantly remarked to the representatives of the Cheka: “It’s just a song, and then, you can’t forbid me to feel sorry for them!”, He received a clear, laconic answer completely in the spirit of the times: “We will have to, and we’ll forbid you to breathe!” "
At the end of 1917, he went with many of his colleagues to tour the southern cities of Russia, following the retreating White army. Alexander Vertinsky spent almost two years in the south, giving concerts on the stage of small theaters, in literary and artistic societies: Ekaterinoslav, Odessa, Kharkov, Yalta, Sevastopol. He left Russia in 1919 on the ship “Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich”.
Constantinople, Romania, Poland
In Constantinople, Alexander Vertinsky performed in the most expensive and fashionable cabarets “Black Rose” and “Stella”, sang gypsy romances, stylized Russian songs and dreamed of touring Bessarabia, concerts in front of “his” Russian public. The artist managed to buy a Greek passport, which opened up opportunities for free movement around the world.
In Romania, Alexander Vertinsky was received very warmly; he could finally sing his songs, performing in front of a Russian audience. However, he was expelled from the country as an unreliable element inciting anti-Romanian sentiments among the Russian population in annexed Bessarabia. The reason for this accusation was the stunning success of Vertinsky’s song “In the Moldavian Steppe” among the Russian population.
The artist went to Poland, where he spent 1922-1923. During this period, Alexander Vertinsky first applied to the Soviet consulate in Warsaw with a request to return to Russia; under the petition, the Soviet ambassador to Poland P. L. Voikov put a positive resolution, on whose advice Vertinsky made this attempt. He was refused. During these years, Vertinsky toured with great success in Austria, Hungary, Beirut, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, and Germany.
Vertinsky lived in Berlin from 1923 to 1925, where he married the daughter of Russian emigrants Pototsky, Raisa, whom he met in Sopot. However, family life did not work out, and the paths of the young spouses quickly diverged. They met again in Shanghai, when the question of Vertinsky’s second marriage arose. By the mid-1920s. Vertinsky becomes a world celebrity, however, when he tried again to appeal to the head of the Soviet delegation in Berlin A. Lunacharsky with a request to return to his homeland, he was again refused. Vertinsky went to Paris - the capital of the creative emigrant intelligentsia.
In France at that time, artists were treated as superior beings: with a mixture of pride and admiration. Alexander Vertinsky lived here for almost ten years, from 1925 to 1934. This country enjoyed perhaps the artist’s greatest love after his native Russia: “...my France is one Paris, but one Paris is all France! I loved France sincerely, like anyone who lived in it for a long time. It was impossible not to love Paris, just as it was impossible to forget it or prefer another city to it. Nowhere abroad did Russians feel so easy and free. It was a city where the freedom of the human person is respected... Yes, Paris... this is the birthplace of my spirit!
Here Alexander Vertinsky performed in the “Great Moscow Hermitage”, “Casanova”, “Kazbek”, “Scheherazade”. It was during this period that the artist’s creative activity flourished. During the years of emigration, he created many of his best songs: “Pani Irena”, “Wreath”, “Ballad of the Gray Lady”, “In the Blue and Distant Ocean”, “Concert of Sarasate”, “Hispano-Suiza”, “Crazy Organ Grinder” "", "Madam, the leaves are already falling", "Tango "Magnolia", "Song about my wife", "Days are flying", "Piccolo Bambino", "Femme raffinee", "Jimmy", "Christmas", "Palestinian tango" , “Tin Heart”, “Marlene”, “Yellow Angel”, “Irina Strozzi”.
In Paris, Vertinsky communicated with I. Mozzhukhin, Fyodor Chaliapin, Serge Lifar, A. Pavlova, Y. Morfessi, N. Plevitskaya, Tamara Karsavina, N. Baliev, Sergei Rachmaninov. Here he met Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo. In many ways, it was they who gave Vertinsky the idea of touring in America.
The country of the “yellow devil” In the fall of 1934, the steamship Lafayette took Alexander Vertinsky to America, he toured in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Here Vertinsky performed at the New York Town Hall and in major music halls, and was a success. In Hollywood, he was offered to star in the film, but the script was written in English. Having a good command of German and perfect knowledge of French, Vertinsky could not stand English speech and refused to film.
During the period of emigration, the artist reached his creative peak. Alexander Vertinsky was popular not only among emigrants, he had worldwide fame, despite the fact that he performed his songs exclusively in Russian. Vertinsky’s success was facilitated by his excellent artistic abilities and unique performing style - from the first minutes of communication with the audience, the artist skillfully “tuned in” to it. By shading the performance of his songs with subtle nuances, he could give them a different meaning, look at them from a different angle, and make them closer and more understandable to this particular audience.
Shanghai. In October 1935, Alexander Vertinsky left for China in the hope of finding a Russian listener in the large emigrant community in Shanghai. Here the artist remained until 1943, until his return to the Soviet Union. While living in China, Vertinsky became aware of need for the first time in his emigrant life; In addition, for an artist accustomed to moving around in world centers, life in China looked very provincial. He sang in the Renaissance cabaret, in the Arcadia summer garden, and in the Marie-Rose cafe, but these were very modest establishments.
A crisis has come in the artist's life. At this moment, Vertinsky was invited to the Soviet embassy and offered to return to his homeland, presenting “an official invitation from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, inspired by the Komsomol initiative.” It was 1937. For Vertinsky, the invitation was a big surprise; he sought to get rid of his debts as soon as possible in order to leave for the Soviet Union. To do this, Alexander Vertinsky decided to enter into a risky venture; he became a co-owner of the Gardenia cabaret, which suffered a financial collapse a month later.
At the same time, the artist began working for the Soviet newspaper “New Life” in Shanghai, performing at the Soviet Citizens Club, participating in TASS radio broadcasts, and preparing memoirs about his life abroad. In this way, Alexander Vertinsky tried to demonstrate loyalty to the Soviet regime and feel like a full citizen of his native country. However, papers for entry into the USSR were delayed, including due to the outbreak of the 1939-1945 war.
Back in Russia
On May 26, 1942, Alexander Vertinsky entered into a second marriage with Lydia Vladimirovna Tsirgvava, the twenty-year-old daughter of a CER employee. After the Japanese occupation, the family's financial situation became very difficult. Vertinsky despaired of getting permission to return to his homeland, but in 1943 he made one last attempt and wrote a letter addressed to V. M. Molotov. Permission was received. At the end of 1943, the Vertinsky family with their four-month-old daughter Marianna settled in Moscow on Gorky Street.
The creativity of this period has a completely different coloring than the songs of the emigration period, the Parisian time. He wrote songs based on poems by Soviet authors and himself composed patriotic texts full of love for the Motherland, bearing the burdens of war. These include the songs: “About us and about the homeland”, “Our grief”, “In the snows of Russia”, “Another song”, “Kitezh”.
The love lyrics of Alexander Vertinsky, despite a happy romance and subsequent marriage, became joyless and tragic, bore the imprint of a crisis, and there was nothing left in it from the romantic light sadness of his early lyrical poems. “Farewell”, “Unnecessary letter”, “Bar-girl”, “Killed love”, “Salvation”, “Monkey Charlie”, “Nothing happens in this life”, “Autumn” - these are rather bitter poems. Some exception is the poem “Without Women,” written with charming irony, the hero of which is a brilliant, handsome, flirtatious favorite of women, taking the pose of a settled, decent gentleman.
Alexander Vertinsky lived in his homeland for 14 years. All this time he worked intensively, constantly performed in concerts, and was a huge success. He toured the whole country with concerts from Yerevan to Murmansk, from Riga to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Vertinsky starred in the films: “Conspiracy of the Doomed” (1950, role of a cardinal, State Prize 1951), “The Great Warrior of Albania Skanderbeg” (role of the Doge of Venice), “Anna on the Neck” (1954, role of a prince). At the end of 1944, the second daughter Anastasia was born into the Vertinsky family. During the 14 years of his life in the USSR, Vertinsky wrote just over twenty poems: “Daughters”, “Salute”, “Before the Face of the Motherland”, “Singing Birds”, “Fatherland”, “Wife Lila”, “Children’s Town”.
It would seem that life at home was developing happily and successfully. However, out of more than a hundred songs from Vertinsky’s repertoire, no more than thirty were allowed to be performed in the USSR; moreover, at each concert there was a censor who vigilantly ensured that the artist did not go beyond the established limits. Concerts in Moscow and Leningrad were rare, Vertinsky was not invited to radio, almost no records were published, and there were no reviews in newspapers.
Alexander Vertinsky performed mainly in the provinces, in small remote towns, which were often beyond the power of an elderly person to get to and live in difficult living conditions. Material difficulties were aggravated by the spiritual loneliness of the artist, accustomed to communicating with the creative and spiritual elite of European capitals. From his correspondence it is clear how burdensome this ambiguous situation was for the artist.
E. R. Sekacheva
Alexander Nikolaevich Vertinsky was born in 1889 in the family of a private attorney. Nikolai Petrovich Vertinsky, in addition to practicing law, was also involved in journalism: in the Kiev Word he published feuilletons under the pseudonym Count Niver. The marriage between Vertinsky’s father and his mother, Evgenia Stepanovna Skolatskaya, was not formalized, since Nikolai Petrovich’s first wife did not give her husband a divorce. Sasha was adopted by her own father.
Three years after the birth of her son, Evgenia Stepanovna suddenly dies. Nikolai Petrovich, from melancholy and worries - he loved his second wife very much - develops transient consumption, and two years later he too leaves for another world. Five-year-old Sashenka ends up in the house of one of his aunts. His older sister, Nadya, was taken by another aunt. Therefore, from the very beginning of the journey, brother and sister separated for a long time.
He studied poorly. From the second grade of the Imperial 1st Alexandria Gymnasium, where the children of wealthy parents studied, by decision of the pedagogical council he was transferred to a “simpler” gymnasium, but from there he was expelled due to poor academic performance. I had to receive further education on the street...
Alexander Vertinsky was then twenty years old. In search of his daily bread, he sold postcards, loaded watermelons on the Dnieper, worked as a proofreader in a printing house, and was even an assistant accountant at the Evropeyskaya Hotel, from where, however, he was quickly kicked out “for inability.” Vertinsky makes his first attempts to establish himself on the theater stage. But they all end in failure.
For all Vertinsky’s snobbery, he had more than enough desire to learn. ...He gets along with the futurists, meets with Mayakovsky and Burliuk. And, of course, he again plunges into the bohemian environment, with its eternal, never-ending disputes, overthrowing authorities and snorting cocaine.
Finally, Alexander Vertinsky gets a number at the Artsybushevsky Theater, called “Tango”. This new dance, which quickly became fashionable, was staged in the theater with elements of eroticism. On stage, the prima ballerina and her partner, in spectacular costumes, performed intricate steps, and Vertinsky, standing at the wings, performed a song - a parody of what was happening. The number was a success, and the aspiring artist got around to one line in the review of the Russian Word: “Witty and cutesy Alexander Vertinsky.”
In 1913, Alexander Vertinsky tried to enter the Art Theater. He passed the qualifying rounds, got into the “five” applicants, which in itself was a great achievement, but at the final stage of the competition he was rejected by Stanislavsky himself: the great stage reformer did not like the fact that Vertinsky burbled heavily.
Few people know that Vera Kholodnaya owes her rapid cinematic career to Vertinsky. It was he who first saw the demonic beauty and talent of an actress in the modest, unknown wife of Ensign Kholodny and brought her to the Khanzhonkov film factory. Alexander Vertinsky guessed in her the future star of the Russian screen. He was secretly in love with the actress and dedicated his first songs to her - “Little Creole”, “Behind the Scenes”, “Your fingers smell like incense”.
At the beginning of the First World War, Alexander Vertinsky served on a medical train, but it was soon disbanded, and in the spring of 1915 Alexander returned to Moscow.
In search of work, he wandered into the Artsybushevsky Theater of Miniatures, which he knew, and offered an original number there: “Songs of Pierrot.” Artsybusheva liked the idea. An exotic set was made for Vertinsky, and appropriate “lunar” lighting was selected. Now Vertinsky went on stage already thoroughly made up and wearing a specially tailored Pierrot costume. In the deathly, lemon-lilac light of the footlights, the artist’s thickly powdered face seemed like a motionless, withered mask.
Vertinsky performed a whole block of minor songs: “A Minute”, “Little Creole”, “Flaubert’s Parrot”, “The Lord’s Ball”, “In a Blue Distant Bedroom”, “Three Pages”, etc. The first performance was an immediate resounding success. Invitations from other pop theaters followed. In 1916, Alexander Vertinsky had already become an all-Russian celebrity. Vertinsky for the first time gave the pop audience a truly artistic Russian song. He amazed everyone with the novelty and originality of his works.
The artist performed in the guise of the sad Pierrot for a relatively short time: from approximately mid-1915 to the end of 1917. Probably, the October Revolution, which at once put an end to uncertainty and illusions, interfered, changed Vertinsky’s psychology in some way and led him to abandon the Pierrot mask.
Before his departure to emigrate, he never recorded a single record in Russia.
Alexander Vertinsky's main audience abroad was, of course, Russian emigration scattered throughout the world. For this reason, he often had to move from one country to another. As soon as the public became saturated with his songs, he changed his haven. Vertinsky had no permanent shelter or nest anywhere.
In Shanghai, he first felt the need. It is curious that when Alexander Vertinsky returned to his homeland, there was gossip in Moscow that he allegedly took a carload of medicines from China. At that very time, Vertinsky had nothing to buy a stroller for his daughter, who was born in Shanghai, and someone gave him a used one, and his friends got American powdered milk “for babies.” Lidia Vladimirovna Vertinskaya, the artist’s widow, said that during the occupation of Shanghai there was no influx of foreign goods into the city, the Japanese did not supply emigrants with medicines, so even getting an aspirin tablet was a real problem, not to mention any other medicines. And she also said that before each of his concerts, Alexander Nikolaevich bought a tailcoat from a pawnshop, and after the performances he handed it back again, until the next time.
Alexander Vertinsky - laureate of the Stalin Prize in 1951.
Samin D.K. The most famous emigrants of Russia. - M.: Veche, 2000, p. 260.
Slide 1
Alexandr Vertinsky is an outstanding Russian pop artist, film actor, composer, poet and singer, a pop idol in the first half of the 20th century, laureate of the Stalin Prize of the second degree. Father of actresses Marianna and Anastasia Vertinsky. Alexander Nikolaevich Vertinsky.(1889-1957)Slide 2
Alexander Vertinsky was born on March 9, 1889 in Kyiv. Vertinsky's father, private attorney Nikolai Petrovich Vertinsky, came from the family of a railway employee. Mother, Evgenia Stepanovna Skolatskaya, was born into a noble family. Parents.
Slide 3
At the age of nine, Alexander Vertinsky passed the exam at the Alexandria Gymnasium with flying colors, but two years later he was expelled for poor academic performance and bad behavior and transferred to the Kyiv Classical Gymnasium. Here he became interested in theater and played for some time on the amateur stage, although he later admitted his first acting experience was extremely unsuccessful.
Slide 4
Gradually, Vertinsky acquired a reputation as an aspiring Kyiv writer: he wrote theatrical reviews of the performances of celebrities - F. Chaliapin, A. Vyaltseva, M. Karinskaya and others. published short stories in local newspapers. Vertinsky earned his living in various ways: selling postcards, working as a loader, proofreader in a printing house, playing in amateur performances; He also worked as an accountant at the European Hotel, from where he was fired “for inability.”
Slide 5
In 1910, Vertinsky, hoping to make a literary career for himself, moved to Moscow, where he and his sister Nadya, an actress, settled in Kozitsky Lane, in the house of Bakhrushin. Here he began performing in literary and dramatic communities, including as a director, and worked for some time in an atelier. Vertinsky did not imitate Blok, but was impressed by his poetic images and subsequently called his own life perception of that time “very Blok-like.”
Slide 6
Vertinsky’s film debut took place in 1912 in Ilya Tolstoy’s film based on his father’s story “How do people live?”, where he got the role of an Angel who fell “from heaven” into the snow. He starred in several silent films by Khanzhonkov studio in minor roles; It is known that the script for one of the films was based on a story told by Vertinsky in the poem “The Lord’s Ball.” Among his later film works were “The King Without a Crown” and “From Slavery to Freedom.” Film debut
Slide 7
In November 1920, on the ship "Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich", together with white officers, Alexander Vertinsky crossed to Constantinople, where he began giving concerts again. Vertinsky was able to return to his homeland only in November 1943. Emigration
Slide 2
Parents
Alexander Vertinsky was born on March 9, 1889 in Kyiv. Vertinsky's father, private attorney Nikolai Petrovich Vertinsky, came from the family of a railway employee. Mother, Evgenia Stepanovna Skolatskaya, was born into a noble family.
Slide 3
Childhood
At the age of nine, Alexander Vertinsky passed the exam at the Alexandria Gymnasium with flying colors, but two years later he was expelled for poor academic performance and bad behavior and transferred to the Kyiv Classical Gymnasium. Here he became interested in theater and played for some time on the amateur stage, although he later admitted his first acting experience was extremely unsuccessful.
Slide 4
The beginning of a creative career
Gradually, Vertinsky acquired a reputation as an aspiring Kyiv writer: he wrote theatrical reviews of the performances of celebrities - F. Chaliapin, A. Vyaltseva, M. Karinskaya and others. published short stories in local newspapers. Vertinsky earned his living in various ways: selling postcards, working as a loader, proofreader in a printing house, playing in amateur performances; He also worked as an accountant at the European Hotel, from where he was fired “for inability.”
Slide 5
In 1910, Vertinsky, hoping to make a literary career for himself, moved to Moscow, where he and his sister Nadya, an actress, settled in Kozitsky Lane, in the house of Bakhrushin. Here he began performing in literary and dramatic communities, including as a director, and worked for some time in an atelier. Vertinsky did not imitate Blok, but was impressed by his poetic images and subsequently called his own life perception of that time “very Blok-like.”
Slide 6
Film debut
Vertinsky’s film debut took place in 1912 in Ilya Tolstoy’s film based on his father’s story “How do people live?”, where he got the role of an Angel who fell “from heaven” into the snow. He starred in several silent films by Khanzhonkov studio in minor roles; It is known that the script for one of the films was based on a story told by Vertinsky in the poem “The Lord’s Ball.” Among his later film works were “The King Without a Crown” and “From Slavery to Freedom”
Description of the presentation by individual slides:
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Alexander Nikolaevich Vertinsky Prepared by: teacher of Russian language and literature Zharkova E.V.
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Alexander Nikolaevich Vertinsky (March 9 (21), 1889, Kyiv - May 21, 1957, Leningrad) - an outstanding Russian pop artist, film actor, composer, poet and singer, pop idol in the first half of the 20th century. Father of actresses Marianna and Anastasia Vertinsky.
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Childhood. First creative experiences. Parents, Nikolai Petrovich Vertinsky and Evgenia Stepanovna Skolatskaya, were not officially married. The children (son Alexander and daughter Nadezhda) were officially adopted by their father. When Sasha Vertinsky was three years old, his mother died, and two years later his father died of transient consumption. The brother and sister were taken into care by their mother's sisters in different families. Preventing their communication in every possible way, the aunts told Alexander a deliberate lie about his sister’s death. Brother and sister met as adults. Father Nikolai Petrovich with brother Mother Evgenia Stepanovna Alexander Vertinsky with sister Nadezhda
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The development and creative style of Alexander Vertinsky began to take shape in the Kiev literary collection of Sofia Nikolaevna Zelinskaya. During this period, Alexander Vertinsky tried to engage in literary work; his stories appeared in the newspaper “Kievskaya Nedelya” - “Portrait”, “Cigarettes “Spring””, “My Bride”, and in the weekly “Lukomorye” - the story “Red Butterflies”. The young poet writes theatrical reviews of the performances of major celebrities - Chaliapin, Vyaltseva, Vavich, Anselmi, Karinskaya, Ruffo.
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On the Moscow stage. To the cinema. In 1909-1910 Alexander Vertinsky moved to Moscow, trying to find himself and make a career, and played small roles in fashionable plays in small studios and circles. At the beginning of 1912, Alexander Vertinsky entered the miniature theater of M. A. Artsibusheva, where he performed small parodies. Since 1912, Alexander Vertinsky successfully acted in silent films (“The King Without a Crown”, “From Slavery to Freedom”, “How People Live”), on the set he became friends with the stars of Russian cinema of the early 20th century. - Ivan Mozzhukhin and Vera Kholodnaya. During the same period, Alexander Vertinsky met Vladimir Mayakovsky. Ivan Mozzhukhin Vera Kholodnaya Vladimir Mayakovsky
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World War I. Birth of Pierrot. During the First World War, at the end of 1914, Alexander Vertinsky went as a volunteer orderly on a train that ran between the front line and Moscow and served until the spring of 1915, when, after being slightly wounded, he returned to Moscow. After returning to Moscow, Vertinsky began performing at the Artsibusheva Theater of Miniatures, but with his own number, “Songs of Pierrot.” Vertinsky managed to create a new genre that had not yet appeared on the Russian stage. Alexander Vertinsky’s special style, the stage mask, was also attractive to the public. From mid-1915 to the end of 1917, the artist performed in the makeup of a sad Pierrot.
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Slide description:
The choice of Alexander Vertinsky’s stage mask was influenced by Blok’s poetry, which Vertinsky was very keen on, in particular the play “Balaganchik” and the cycle of poems “Masks”. His Pierrot is a comical sufferer, naive and enthusiastic, always dreaming about something, a sad jester, in whom true suffering and true nobility are visible through his comical manner. The image of black Pierrot appeared later: the deathly white makeup on his face was replaced by a domino mask, Pierrot’s white suit was a completely black robe, the only white spot on which was a neckerchief. The new Pierrot became more ironic and sarcastic in his songs than before, because he had lost the naive dreams of his youth and saw the everyday simplicity and indifference of the world around him.
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Success. Refusal of the Pierrot mask In 1916, Alexander Vertinsky already enjoyed all-Russian popularity. By 1917, the artist had traveled to almost all major cities of the Russian Empire, where he performed with constant success. During this period, he abandoned the Pierrot mask and began performing in a concert tailcoat, in which he performed all his life, never deviating from this stage costume, which also became a kind of mask.
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Departure from a “mediocre country” After the revolution of 1917, Alexander Vertinsky came to the conclusion that he could not get along with the new government. At the end of 1917, he went with many of his colleagues to tour the southern cities of Russia, following the retreating White army. Alexander Vertinsky spent almost two years in the south, giving concerts on the stage of small theaters, in literary and artistic societies: Ekaterinoslav, Odessa, Kharkov, Yalta, Sevastopol. He left Russia in 1919 on the ship “Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich”.
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Again in Russia, on May 26, 1942, Alexander Vertinsky entered into a second marriage with Lydia Vladimirovna Tsirgvava. In 1943, he made his last attempt and wrote a letter addressed to V. M. Molotov. Permission to return was received. At the end of 1943, the Vertinsky family with their four-month-old daughter Marianna settled in Moscow on Gorky Street. Alexander Vertinsky lived in his homeland for 14 years. All this time he worked intensively, constantly performed in concerts, and was a huge success. It would seem that life in his homeland was developing happily and successfully; at every concert there was a censor who vigilantly ensured that the artist did not go beyond the established limits. Alexander Vertinsky performed mainly in the provinces and lived in difficult living conditions.
Genus. March 21 (April 2), 1889, in Kyiv, d. May 21, 1957, in Leningrad (buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery). Poet, composer, chansonnier, artist. In his early youth, he published poems and stories in Kyiv newspapers and magazines, and wrote theater reviews. In 1909-1910, having moved to Moscow, he tried his hand at acting and at the beginning of 1912 he got a job at the theater of miniatures by M. A. Artsibusheva (he performed in parody numbers), acted in silent films ("The King Without a Crown", "From slavery to freedom", "How people live"). In 1915, he received his own number at the theater - “Songs of Pierrot”, where he performed his own poems, often set to music of his own composition (“Little Creole”, “Purple Negro”, “Your fingers smell like incense”, “Just a minute”, “ I’m laughing at myself today,” “Behind the Scenes,” “Smoke without Fire,” “Crystal Dirge,” “The Wifeless,” “The Lord’s Ball,” “Dog Douglas,” “About Six Mirrors,” “Jamais,” etc.) . The performance was a success, V. began to be invited to other Moscow stages, and since 1916 the artist has been touring throughout the empire. After the October Revolution he emigrated (1919), worked in Constantinople, Romania, Poland (1922-1923), toured in Austria, Hungary, Beirut, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Germany (1923-25), in France (1925-34; here Many of V.’s best songs were written - “Pani Irena”, “Wreath”, “In the Blue and Distant Ocean”, “Crazy Organ Grinder”, “Madam, the Leaves are Already Falling”, “Jimmy”, “Yellow Angel”, etc. ), toured in Europe and America. In 1935-43. in China (Shanghai). He repeatedly appealed to the Soviet authorities with a request to return to Russia, was refused twice, and only in 1937 was V. invited to return to his homeland. The return took place in 1943. A new period began in V.’s work (in addition to love lyrics, which are still bitter, the repertoire includes songs based on poems by Soviet poets and his own patriotic songs - “About Us and About the Motherland”, “Our Grief”, “ In the snows of Russia", "Another Song", "Kitezh"). V. gave many concerts and worked in films (the cardinal in “Conspiracy of the Doomed,” 1950; the Doge of Venice in “The Great Warrior of Albania Skanderbeg”; the prince in “Anna on the Neck”).
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VERTINSKY Alexander Nikolaevich
21.3.1889, Kyiv - 21.5.1957, Leningrad) artist, poet, composer. V. spent his childhood in Kyiv. At the age of 4, he lost his mother, and his father, a well-known lawyer in Kyiv, soon died.
The boy and his older sister, taken in by relatives, ended up in different cities and considered each other dead. A chance meeting with his sister, also an actress, occurred only in 1912 in Moscow. He grew up an orphan, experiencing a constant feeling of hunger, suffering beatings for bad grades, for forced petty theft. V, recalled: “Lying at night on a chest on a rough soldier’s carpet, in the hallway, covered in bruises, beaten and insulted, crying bitterly...” He studied poorly, the gymnasium remained unfinished. At the age of 16, he was kicked out of the house - he spent the night wherever he had to, on cold stairs, in garden gazebos. He became interested in theater early on, infiltrated concerts and performances in every way, and sometimes participated in them as an extra. At amateur evenings he sang gypsy romances with a guitar. To support himself, he worked as a proofreader, loaded watermelons, sold postcards... His passion for art brought V. into the circle of Kyiv bohemia, who gathered in the basement, in a small tavern near the City Duma, over a glass of cheap wine.
Dressed in a second-hand tailcoat bought at a market, always with a fresh flower in his buttonhole, contemptuous and arrogant, he spent days and nights here.
Again, a half-starved existence, odd jobs, the usual circle of bohemians. He was fond of the poetry of A. Blok, I. Annensky, A. Akhmatova, F. Sologub, and attended lectures at Moscow University as a volunteer. After an unsuccessful attempt to pass the exams to become an extra at the Moscow Art Theater, he accidentally ended up at the small Mamonovsky Theater of Miniatures (1913), where at first he received a daily lunch instead of a salary. He performed short humorous stories, couplets, the role of the Good Fellow in the one-act opera “Princess Azvyakovna,” as well as parodies of his own composition, which brought his first success.
His artistic career was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I.V. He began working in a Moscow hospital, then on an ambulance train, performing not only dressings, but also simple operations. He worked selflessly, surprising with his endurance. Over the course of a year and a half, he performed 35 thousand dressings. In short periods of leisure, “Brother Pierrot” or simply Pierosha, as he was called on the train, sang romances with a guitar, composed parodies, and comic topical poems. Work weaned him off cocaine, a fashionable craze among bohemians that took hold of V. before the war.
Returning to Moscow (1916), “Brother Pierrot” transformed into a genuine romantic Pierrot, who performed nightly in the program of the Petrovsky Theater of Miniatures. Pierrot's robe (white, later black), conventional, emphasized makeup (lead white, mascara, bright red mouth) helped to hide uncertainty and excitement: “I didn’t know how to sing! I was a rather modest poet, an even more unimportant composer, I didn’t even know notes.”
After the first “ariettes”: “Minutochka”, “Jamay”, “Grey-Eyed”, “Little Creole”, “Lilac Negro”, “The Lord’s Ball”, “Cocainetochka” - success came bordering on scandal. Portraits in shop windows, articles in the press, publication of sheet music and records that were distributed throughout the country.
Critics were perplexed when reflecting on the phenomenon of V., reproaching him for decadence, “cocaine dope,” and banality. The judgments were not without foundation; but suffering, combined with irony, the ability to look at oneself from the outside, gave the banal poetic lines a deeply personal fullness and a uniquely individual coloring, V.
created his own theater, where he was an artist, a director, an author, and a composer. The scope of the numbers in the program of the miniature theater became cramped for him, and by the end of 1917 he began giving concerts around the country with his program. During this tragic time for Russia, a fashionable singer, who called to cherish the “moment”, the fleeting joys of life, performed a song dedicated to the cadets who died in battle with the Bolsheviks: “I don’t know why and who needs this...” Pierrot’s costume was replaced by a black business card with mourning crepe bow on the sleeve. The song was performed fiercely, angrily and at the same time solemnly, causing tears, hysterics, and applause mixed with whistling in the audience.
At the end of 1918, V. left hungry Moscow in the hope of a quick return, which, however, took place only a quarter of a century later. Kyiv, Kharkov, Odessa, Sevastopol - V. path; in the fall of 1920, he arrived in Constantinople by ship together with the headquarters of Wrangel’s army.
“Starting from Constantinople and ending with Shanghai, I lived a long and not very cheerful life as an emigrant... I saw a lot, learned a lot.”
Humiliation and insults - V. had to endure a lot of them - developed spiritual sensitivity, understanding of someone else's grief, and compassion for him. In Constantinople he performed in the small cabaret “Black Rose” with gypsy songs, then moved to the country garden “Stella”, visited by Russians, where he could perform his repertoire. Invitations followed to official banquets, receptions, and even to the Sultan’s palace. There was no money or documents to move to Europe. A theater administrator I knew from Moscow came to the rescue; he offered concerts in Romania and got hold of a passport for this trip in the name of the Greek citizen Alexander Varditis, with whom the artist subsequently traveled almost half the world. Tours began: Romania, Poland, Palestine, Alexandria, Beirut. In 1923/24 concert tours in Germany, in 1925 - France.V. sang old gypsy romances in third-rate chants and in first-class restaurants, accompanied by a small orchestra, sometimes a guitar or piano. In Moldova and Poland, where there was a large Russian-speaking population, he performed his songs. Here there was an acute feeling of the closeness of the homeland: “Oh, how sweet, how painful through tears / Even to look at the native country...” Nostalgia, so characteristic of the Russian emigration, gave birth to V.’s masterpieces: “In the Moldavian steppe” (1925), “Aliens” cities" (1934, co-authored with R. Bloch), "About us and about the homeland" (1935), etc.
V. stayed in France for almost 10 years. Making short concert tours in Europe, at the beginning of the season he returned to Paris to the “Great Moscow Hermitage”, where famous Russian artists N. Plevitskaya, Yu. Morfessi worked, a balalaika orchestra and others played. After one o’clock in the morning he sang in “Kazbek” in Montmartre , in "Scheherazade", a small but very expensive "Casanova". All kinds of celebrities gathered here: kings, princes, maharajahs, grand dukes, millionaires, famous actors. V. became close to outstanding figures of Russian art F. Chaliapin, S. Lifar, T. Karsavina, A. Pavlova, I. Mozzhukhany, M. Kshesinskaya . “In evening restaurants, in Parisian booths” famous songs were born: the ironic “Femme raffince”, the sorrowful “Yellow Angel”, “Jimmy”, “Piccolo Bambino”, etc. In 1934, V. arrived in New York on an ocean liner, where he gave concert in a large, 2500-seat Town Hall. The entire color of the Russian artistic world was present at the concert, including S. Rachmaninov, F. Chaliapin, N. Baliev. Engagements in California (San Francisco, Hollywood) provided the opportunity to meet the best American actors. V. dedicated the famous song “Goodbye” (“It’s not difficult to love you”) to Marlene Dietrich. The last country in V.'s wanderings was China (1935-43). He sang in night cabarets in Shanghai and Harbin, where there were many Russian-speaking audiences. Occasionally he gave concerts in large halls. He continued to write songs, including the famous “Farewell Dinner” and “How Good It Is Without Women.”
V.'s songs presented an illusory, colorful world populated by many bizarre characters. Among them are lackeys and lords, sailors and admirals, bishops and clowns, cocottes and princesses... With a sharp wave of his hand, movement of his fingers, an arrogant ironic half-smile, a slight sarcastic or mournful grimace, V. showed these characters.
Gestures not only provided an instant and vivid illustration of the song being performed, but in some cases were associative in nature, helping to create the mood and convey the atmosphere. The performance was based on contrasting transitions from smooth melodic lines to energetic, rhythmic recitation, on sharp changes in moods, the junctions of an ordinary situation and an arrogant tone. Irony reduced pathos, mockery covered up tragedy, bravura gaiety covered up mental pain. Sophisticated performing skills, a masterfully developed intonation-plastic score, and the highest artistry made V.'s songs and novellas a great art. It is no coincidence that, as a rule, they were not successful when performed by other artists. In V’s concert repertoire there were songs not only based on his own poems. True to his youthful hobbies, he turned poems by A. Blok, N. Gumilev, A. Akhmatova, I. Annensky, G. Ivanov into songs, making them accessible to the widest audience. At the same time, performing ancient and gypsy romances in his own way (“We rode in a troika with bells,” “Meetings happen only once in life,” etc.), he raised them to a qualitatively different level, cleared them of the touch of vulgarity, and turned sentimentality into pure lyrics.
Formed by the art of the Russian Silver Age, V. proudly carried its spirit in its own, somewhat “reduced” version through revolutions, wars, and emigration.
In 1943, after the third request, V. was allowed to return to Russia.
Tours began, performances in concert halls, small clubs, and cultural centers. Everywhere with triumphant success. V.’s songs, which seemed distant to people who grew up in Soviet reality, did not leave them indifferent. Along with subtle connoisseurs and experts (V. constantly gave concerts in the Houses of the Creative Intelligentsia), he was applauded by the widest, most unsophisticated public. The artist gave more than 3 thousand concerts, accompanied by pianist M. Broches, and toured the whole country several times. In the early 50s he starred in the films “Conspiracy of the Doomed” (Cardinal, State Prize 1951), “Anna on the Neck” (Prince), etc. Silence of the press, lack of records that were published abroad in millions of copies, publications of notes, poems, speeches on the radio hurt V. And yet he believed that “in 30-40 years, me and my work will be pulled out of the basements of oblivion.” The prophecy came true. Since the late 70s, V.’s records began to be released. His songs are most fully presented in the double album “Alexander Vertinsky” (Melody, 1990). Two discs with V.'s songs were published in France (1993). Poems, sheet music, memoirs are published,
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