Author: Kawami
In 2022, the famous Russian director Kirill Sherebrenniko directed a film "Tchaikovsky's Wife" about the life of the great Russian composer Tchaikovsky, which appeared in the main competition unit of the Cannes Film Festival in France, revealing the struggle, sadness and loneliness behind the legend and glamour of the talented composer from a little-known side.
Tchaikovsky (May 7, 1840 – November 6, 1893) was a Russian Romantic composer who graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory at the age of 24.
In 1867 the First Symphony was performed for the first time in Moscow.
In 1870, the fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet was first performed in Moscow.
In 1876, a correspondence began with Mrs. Meck, a wealthy widow who financially supported the talented composer's family for 14 years.
In 1877, the ballet Swan Lake premiered.
In 1879, the opera "Eugene Onegin" was premiered.
In 1880, the Italian Caprice was premiered.
In 1888, the Fifth Symphony was premiered in St. Petersburg.
In 1890, he composed the opera "The Queen of Spades".
In 1892, the ballet The Nutcracker premiered in St. Petersburg.
In 1893, he composed the Sixth Symphony. He died of cholera on November 6 of that year.
Tchaikovsky's compositions involve almost all musical genres and forms, among which symphonic compositions are in an important position. He inherited the achievements of the development of Russian music since Glinka, and at the same time paid attention to absorbing the experience of the development of Western European music culture, organically combining a high degree of professional skills with the Russian national music tradition, and creating a series of proud musical works with dramatic conflicts and strong national styles.
A proper musical genius, like thunder. Let's put it this way, Lao Chai's musical attainments are probably unsurpassed by his contemporaries. For the sake of writing this article, I have studied a little of Lao Chai's musical works, and his symphonies and operatic achievements are inseparable from the achievements of his life, and among the 10 operas, the most influential and artistic value are "Evgeny Onegin" (1878) and "The Queen of Spades" (1890), which are adapted from Pushkin's two original works of the same name. The former was created in the middle period, when Chai "strayed" into marital difficulties, and the latter was created in the late period, when he saw through the complexity and strangeness of human nature, and his short-lived marriage with his wife Antonina and the subsequent mutual pulling and torment of this loveless marriage were the lingering heavy shadows in the heart of "Lao Chai", dyeing the music he composed in the second half of his life with a sad and sad tone.
In the movie, Antonina Milyukova (played by Lyona Mikhailova) is actually a student at the Conservatory, and she falls in love with Tchaikovsky (Odin Rand Byron) at first sight at a concert. She asked the old lady Tchaikovsky's mother to introduce her to the music masters, saying that she would ask him some questions about music. After that, she fell into unrequited love, and she wrote many letters to Tchaikovsky, telling her deep love for musicians.
It was in Russia at the end of the 19th century, when women existed only in the names of men in passports. In other words, in a fairly patriarchal society, the status of women is very low. Milyukova's family had some land that could be used for her dowry. She wanted to exchange money for a title, the wife of the famous composer Tchaikovsky, and this conjecture filled all her pursuits for a while.
As for Chai, music creation is on the rise. He had a personal contact with Milyukova, and in order to avoid rumors and some financial temptations, he agreed to marry his suitor Milyukova, and he proposed to the little woman, and they were married on July 6, 1877. In their wedding photos, Milyukova sees them as more important than life, "I am Tchaikovsky's wife"! She fantasizes about following her celebrity husband into the social circle of high society, what a wonderful and enviable life it must be.
However, this unequal marriage match soon pushed the married life of the two into a long torment, tug-of-war and even a dilemma. After only six weeks, Chai declared a marital feud, he shouted the name of the manservant "Seryosha", and he even disdained to take a cup of tea that his wife flatteringly handed him. He angrily counted down the young woman who had to follow him every minute, and he didn't bother to look at her later, busy with his own creations, business trips, and concerts. didn't even give his wife a ticket for the concert, and the Liu family was really going crazy......
It turned out that Tchaikovsky had a problem with his sexual orientation, he did not like women. On the one hand, his talent for music creation is too high, he brews one musical work after another, and his blowout creative desire drives him to want to leave this woman who keeps saying that he loves him, and to some extent her flattering pleasing, which makes Chai shocked and even disgusted. Unable to stand the noise and trivial family life, he fled Antonina's house under the pretext of a performance mission.
Next, Chai entrusted a lawyer to handle the divorce procedures. But it has only been six weeks since she got married, and Antonina has not had a round room once, how can she stand it for a young and normal woman? The movie does not shy away from writing about the crazy carnal desires of the Liu family and the lawyer, and they have a son and a daughter one after another. This paranoid woman just doesn't admit that her husband doesn't love her and doesn't admit his sexuality. She unilaterally declared in a high-profile manner that "I am Tchaikovsky's wife, the only wife". She couldn't find him, and wanted to see him desperately, but sadly, until she became mentally ill and was admitted to a mental hospital, she clung to "Tchaikovsky's wife" and refused to let go, until that day she read in the newspaper that Tchaikovsky had died of the genetic plague.
This is a particularly brutal story, in the late nineteenth century, when women had no status and perhaps the only way out was to become the wife of a celebrity in order to have a social and prosperous life. It seems that Antonina is an independent woman with pursuits, but she seems to be too paranoid, she can't find a right exit in her life, she is completely brainwashed by herself, I love this man so much. But in fact she didn't know anything about him, she loved some of the labels and some freedom that the name Tchaikovsky brought her.
She is the wife of celebrities, can socialize, and can be a fertility tool. But what she loves after all is a false name, she does not have a normal and warm family life, and her relationship with the lawyer may bring excitement to her lonely and cold single life for a short time. But her soul eventually withered day by day. I think this was the dilemma of that era, and the so-called independence and struggle was just a battle between trapped beasts.
Even if a man is a great musician like Tchaikovsky, his musical attainments cannot whitewash the selfish and cruel side of his human nature. In order to get married for the sake of profit and settle the scandal, and in order to break free from the shackles, he is willing to admit everything in exchange for divorce. Thinking of another genius, the great French thinker Rousseau, he is actually a scumbag, he had five children with his servant Deles, all of whom were sent to an orphanage, and were scolded by Voltaire: Rousseau, you are not human. He spent his life torn between various noble ladies, and his relationship with Mrs. Warren wandered between mother and son and lover.
Delaise followed him for 25 years before he officially married her, but he disdained to let others share his wife. It's really scum "outside the dimension".
It is in line with Rousseau's own famous quote in "The Social Contract": "Man is born free, but he is always in chains". Good one to break through the shackles, as long as (my) is free.
After reading "Tchaikovsky's Wife", I felt very dull, sad for the humble feminine consciousness and feminist consciousness women of that era. From the day Antonina fell in love with Tchaikovsky's maestro, her most beautiful years were trapped in the aura of a man who had created herself. It's like the lobbyist sent by Tchaikovsky: you're an ordinary girl, you're in love with the sun, and you can't help but get burned. It's really cruelly correct, and it breaks the sky in one sentence.
It is said that geniuses are only one step away from madness. In the case of Chai and Rousseau, a musical achievement is on the rise, and a giant of thought is beyond the reach of ordinary people. But in terms of his character, all kinds of peculiar life behaviors, the scum is outrageous, and it constitutes the complete life of a genius.
Dear beautiful girls, geniuses can only be watched from afar, do not enter their realm lightly, that is to pay, maybe be "burned", maybe "ruin you". I can't help but think of Camille, the lover of the famous French sculptor Rodin, who used to be a very talented sculptor, but later became Rodin's lover, and finally became mentally ill but died......