MOSCOW CHERYOMUSHKI. Musical comedy in three acts

Composer:	Shostakovich, Dmitri
Lyricists:	Mass, Vladimir / Tscherwinski, Michail
Playing time:	105:0
Opus/Year:	105 (1958)
Genre:	Stage work
Instrumentation:	3(Picc),3,3,2 - 4,3,3,1 - Pk, Schl (Trgl, Kast, Tamb, kl.Tr, gr.Tr, Bk, Tam-t, Glsp), Harfe, Streicher

Content:

The tour guide Bubentsov accompanies a group through a room in the Museum of the History and Reconstruction of Moscow. Amongst the visitors is Bubenzov�s young wife Masha. Although she and Bubenzov have now been married for several months, they cannot live together due to the general lack of flats. They are therefore forced to meet at the museum or in a caf�. Boris Koretski and Sergei Glushkov enter the room � the friends meet after a long separation. Koretski is also waiting to be assigned a room. When the tour guide Lidochka enters the room, Boris, who immediately falls in love with her, begins flirting with her intensively. Baburov storms in with the news that the house in which he and Lidochka live has collapsed. The horrible news has fortunate consequences, however: suddenly homeless, not only Lidochka and her father but also the Bubentsovs have the right to move into flats in the newly built flats in the suburb of Cheryomushki. Boris suggests that they immediate travel to Cheryomushki. Resolute and full of optimism, they all ride to the new suburb in the car of Sergei�s boss, Drebednyov. Meanwhile Drebednyov and his energetic wife, who also want to go to Cheryomushki, are waiting for their car in vain; in a rage, they set out on foot. In Cheryomushki there is indignation over the sneaky caretaker Barabashkin, who claims that the building has not yet been inspected, which is why the flat keys cannot yet be handed out to the desperately waiting new tenants. Boris, Lidochka and her father finally have themselves lifted by a crane to the balcony of their flat. Now the new tenants try every possible way to get into their flats. Before each person can live happily within his own four walls, however, all kinds of adversities must be overcome. Conditions are articularly
tough for the poor Lidochka, whose flat is again filled with rubble and dust because her arrogant neighbour Drebednyov wants to expand his own flat and simply tears down the separating wall. But with united force, however, the residents and construction workers succeed in putting Drebednyov and the corrupt caretaker in their place. In the end, all the neighbours meet with spades, rakes, flowers and seedlings to plant a new garden, and Boris and Lidochka finally become a happy couple.