The performance Karavaichuk

On 8 February 2018, the Crimson Drawing-Room in the Winter Palace was the setting for a performance entitled Karavaichuk devoted to the legendary composer.

The mystery-spectacle was organized by the Foundation for the Support of Cultural Projects and the Preservation of the Legacy of Oleg Karavaichuk in conjunction with the State Hermitage with the support of the “Snob” project.

Oleg Karavaichuk (1927–2016) was one of the most striking figures in the history of music in Russia in the 20th century, a living legend, composer, pianist and brilliant improvisor, whose work defies ready definition.

“Oleg Nikolayevich Karavaichuk is directly connected with the Hermitage. He was brought here at the age of five and returned throughout his life. He composed music here and played it here. In the Crimson Drawing-Room there is a grand piano that was presented to Nicholas II on which the Hermitage Director Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky allowed no-one but Karavaichuk to play. And Oleg Nikolayevich called the instrument a coffin and claimed that nobody except him would be able to cope with it. On 8 February, fifteen people gathered around that very grand piano – fifteen personages in an extraordinary mystery performance. Each of them is connected to Oleg Nikolayevich and each has something to say about him and to say to him.” — Andrei Savelyev (Savva), the author of the idea, director.

Participating in the performance were Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, Tatyana Borisovna Semenova, senior researcher in the Hermitage’s Department of Western European Applied Art, the stage and film actresses Chulpan Khamatova, Marina Neyelova and Xenia Rappaport, the director Kira Muratova, and people who knew Oleg Karavaichuk well.

As Sergei Nikolayevich, the editor-in-chief of the magazine Snob, noted: “Through collective efforts an image form of an artist, performer and musician who does not fit into any framework or customary roles. And it became clear why Karavaichuk fascinated everyone so much – from Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, who allowed him to visit the Hermitage on Mondays, when the museum is closed, and even to play on an antique piano that once belonged to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, to his personal chauffeur, who was responsible for all his movements around the city and his unpretentious daily life. Karavaichuk is a genius, a being not of this world, sexless and ageless. Very old and at the same time endlessly young, ‘a 14-year-old boy, only one who remembers too much’, the creator of pure music. His entire life was constantly overcoming fences, hurdles, staircases, ridicule, lack of understanding. Really that is what the performance in the Hermitage was about that turned out so penetrating and tender.”

The performance Karavaichuk premiered in the Hermitage without an audience. Everything taking place in the Crimson Drawing-Room was only be available to see in the live streaming at karavaichuk.snob.ru and it attracted thousands of delighted viewers. The event was unique, impossible to repeat. It is a tribute to the memory of a great musician and a major friend of the Hermitage.