The Heart is Not Made of Stone: Akhmatova, Rachmaninoff, Prokofieff

The drama of Russian music woven into a tale of passion, love, political repression, and redemption.

The Heart Is Not Made Of Stone:
The Love Story Of Anna Akhmatova And Isaiah Berlin
With Music" by Rachmaninoff, Prokofieff (Romeo And Juliet), and Shostakovich.

A legend in her own time, loved for the brilliance of her poetry and admired for her unwavering resistance to political oppression, Anna Akhmatova was persecuted by the Soviet regime because of her "eroticism, mysticism, and political indifference" to the ideals of the State.

The centerpiece of this theatrical concert is the meeting of Akhmatova with the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin. When Berlin sought out Anna Ahkmatova during his visit to Leningrad after World War II, he did not realize the havoc he would wreak upon her life. The consequence of this visit, the utter ruination that it brought upon her, as well as the great, enduring love that it evoked in her, are traced in a dramatic story interwoven with scenes that include Stalin, the KGB's surveillance, the final emotional meeting of the two literary giants, and the drama of great music.

Music: Selections from Prokofieff's Romeo and Juliet (transcribed for violin and piano), Rachmaninoff's Variations on a theme by Corelli, and the haunting Shostakovich Trio in E Minor.

Written by Eve Wolf
Directed by Donald T. Sanders
Production design by Vanessa James
Lighting design by Beverly Emmons
Stage management by Julian Sachs

Ariel Bock as Anna Akhmatova
Carlos Dengler as Isaiah Berlin
Kire Tosevski as Lev Gumilyov
Michael Lewis as Ivan
Robert Ian Mackenzie as Boris
Kate Konigisor as Lady Berlin
Tanya Bannister, piano
Yura Lee, violin
Lionel Cottet, cello

Suggested Readings

1. Emma Gerstein (ed.); John Crowfoot (ed. and trans.). Moscow Memoirs: Memories of Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Literary Russia under Stalin (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2004). A good source for first-hand accounts of artistic life under Stalin.
2. Elaine Feinstein. Anna of all the Russias: The Life of Anna Akhmatova (New York: Knopf, 2006). The standard modern biography of Akhmatova in English.
3. György Dalos. The Guest from the Future: Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, trans. Antony Wood). Sheds light on the brief but intense relationship between Akhmatova and Berlin.
4. Laurel E. Fay (ed.). Shostakovich and His World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). A comprehensive collection of essays discussing Shostakovich’s music and that of his contemporaries, with important articles on the cultural and political context of Soviet Russia.
5. Amy Nelson. Music for the Revolution: Musicians and Power in Early Soviet Russia (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2004). A very good introduction to the relationship between music and politics in Soviet Russia.