TEREMIN - Repertory

Petr Zelenka
TEREMIN
A story of a man who changed the face of modern music forever. Dedicated to Robert Moog.

PREMIERE 17.11.2005

Cast: Ivan Trojan, David Novotný, Martin Myšička, Jiří Bábek, Tatiana Vilhelmová, Lenka Krobotová / Klára Melíšková, Jaroslav Plesl, Eliška Boušková, Pavel Šimčík, Václav Jiráček, Petr Koutecký
Set designer: Martin Chocholoušek, Costume designer: Renata Weidlichová, Music: Karel Holas, Dramaturgy: Klára Lidová

Directed by Petr Zelenka

The play is based on the life story of a real person, Russian scientist, musician and also a secret spy Lev Sergejevitch Teremin, a man without whom Robert Moog, according to his words, would never be able to construct a synthesiser.

Lev Teremin lived through most of the 20th century (1896-1993) and his life would deserve to be entered into the Guinness Book of Records if there were a chapter: men with the most remarkable life story.
He was born in Petrograd, studied engineering as well as play on violoncello. Since the early 1920s he devoted himself to perfecting his own invention (thereminvox), which was originally constructed as an alarm and as such was presented even to V.I. Lenin in his study. This unusual device producing tones on a principle of electromagnetic waves intrigued Lenin in such a way that he sent Teremin on a concert tour round Russia, which was at that time in the middle of a civil war. Lenin saw the thereminvox as an ideal instrument for promotion of the plan for elect electrification of Russia. And so an inventor transformed into a musician for whom his instrument became his life-long fate.

Petr Zelenka’s play is set between 1928-1938 when Teremin was living in the United States. He experienced here a triumphant arrival full of expectations, a glory of sold-out concert halls, launch of a serial manufacture of the thereminvox, but also the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, gradual wane of his popularity, divorce with his first wife, and secret marriage to a black dancer, and eventually his strange return to Russia in 1938 under not yet fully explained circumstances.
Although his friends in the U.S. were convinced that he did not survived the atrocities of the Stalin’s concentration camp Magadan, Teremin returned from there after a year thank to the interceding of air design engineer Tupolev, and worked for Russian secret police till a very advanced age. He died in 1993 in venerable 97 years.

…Proven "zelenkian" actor Ivan Trojan is in his role of Teremin surprisingly disciplined, indrawn. He reveals the nature of his character with inner tension and without his usual eccentricity. What has just been said he speedily casts doubt upon only to slightly uncover the real motivation of Teremin’s actions in the final point. He puts together such a psychologically lively portrait of a man who was born in a wrong time, of a pragmatic who readily abandons his wife as well as a lover without a remorse, as well as of a likable enthusiast who easily attracts interest of women and admiration of men. Ivan Trojan gave his character another authentic dimension though his perfect mastering of the play on real thereminvox.
Although the story is situated into a relatively distant history of the turn of the 1920s, it reflects the tragic experiences of people affected by communism and the whole politically divided world. Zelenka’s play offers a strong reflection of a system, which was influencing all our lives until recently, without appeals and black-and-white simplifications.

Saša Hrbotický, Hospodářské noviny


Length of performance: 2 hours 45 minutes, with break