Museum Collection
Sketches of Costumery for the Opera “The Quiet Don”
In the Museum there are 34 works of a scene-designer A.M. Mazanov, each of them is interesting in its way. The collection of scenery and costumery sketches for the opera “The Quiet Don” (19 works) by Mazanov was entered into the Museum of Sholokhov in 1988. They were handed by artist’s son Yuriy Mazanov. In 7 years the collection was completed with two works for the opera “The Quiet Don” and thirteen works for the opera “Virgin Soil Upturned”.
The work of the RSFSR Honoured Worker of Arts A.M. Mazanov (1908-1969) takes a special place among the scene-designers.
He was born in Rostov-on-Don, since 1935 he had worked in the Gorkiy Opera and Ballet Theatre named after A.S. Pushkin, where he designed the scenery of more than a hundred performances.
In 1936-1946 the artist “sketched the scenery and costumery for the opera “The Quiet Don” by I.I. Dzerzhinskiy grounded on the title novel by M.A. Sholokhov, which had 6 seasons of stage run. In 1953-1954 Anatoliy Mikhailovich designed the costumes for another opera by I.I. Dzerzhinskiy “Virgin Soil Upturned” after the novel by M.A. Sholokhov.
The performance ran two seasons in 1954 and 1955.
The author should be noted for his interest for people “living” in the scenery. Boris Pokrovskiy, the USSR People’s Actor, the laureate of the State Prizes, who had been the head director of the Bolshoi Theatre for many years, wrote about the artist: “Look at his sketches and you will see his people in action, stagings determining the feelings of the personages at a given moment of the performance… His scenery aroused aesthetic elevation, a pleasure of meeting with the beautiful”.
At present 4 works of A.M. Mazanov are displayed at the historical literary exposition “M.A. Sholokhov. Time and Destiny” of the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve.
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