Fiddler on the Roof

My friend Kostya gave me two tickets for Fiddler on the Roof for my birthday. So on Sunday night Melody and I went to see the musical. Going to the theatre is a big part of Russian society, as big as going to a sporting event in Australia. Personally I prefer going to a sporting event, but it was still a lot of fun.


(The Theatre of Music and Comedy in Krasnoyarsk.)

Fiddler on the Roof would actually have to be one of my favourite musicals, probably second to the Sound of Music (both interestingly have a theme of anti-Semitism.) I performed as a member of the chorus when I was in year 7, although I have to admit I didn't really understand it at the time. I just remember singing "Tradition, tradtion, tradtion!" as loud as I could.
Some of our friends have tried to see the musical here a couple times and each time they have turned up, it had been cancelled due to the lead actor being sick. (I guess Tevye didn't have an understudy.) So we were glad that the show actually went on, on Sunday.


(Inside the theatre)

It was entertaining to see so many familiar songs in Russian instead of English. There were some obvious differences in my opinion. The actors just seemed to be a little angrier than the versions I know. I couldn't have imagined Mortel yelling at Tevye when he was begging permission to marry Tzeitel, but in this version he did! It was disappointing that the match maker song was left out. It was also disappointing that the matchmaker was played by a man. He turned out to be a comic favourite of the audience but to my taste he was quite irritating.



(The chorus singing "Tradition!")

Surely the Fiddler on the Roof story would be a bit of a punch against Russian sensibility? The Broadway musical was written in 1964 by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. It was based upon a series of short stories by Sholem Rabinovich Aleichem in the Yiddish language. Most of the short stories are covered within the original musical.



(To life, to life, Lachaiem!)

If you remember the synopsis well, three of Tevye's daughters get married throughout the story. The first, Tzeitel is matched with an elderly Lazar Wolf, but begs her Papa if she can marry her love, the poor tailor, Mortel. Tevye's kind heart gives in and breaks with tradition, giving permission to the young sweethearts to marry. His second daughter Hodel, marries the communist academic Pertchik, without permission. They simply beg him for his blessing. Pertchik is a Jew, and Tevye decides to give his blessing. Tevye's third daughter, Chava however chooses to marry Fedkya, also for love. But Fedkya is not a Jew. To Tevye this is going too far and Chava has most certainly broken with tradition and faith. As a result Tevye calls Chava as good as dead and disowns her. Yet in the Russian version of the musical, Tevye has a long conversation with the orthodox priest, who wins Tevye over to accepting Chava back into the family. At the end of the story Chava and Fedkya leave with Tevye and his family when the Jews are expelled, something which did not happen in the original musical. The Russian version seems to have been adjusted to be palatable for a Russian audience.

A bit of live action: