“Bliznetsy” (“Twins”) by V. Shershenevich as a creative variation of Shakespeare's “Twelfth night”

The article analyzes the history of writing, stylistic features and composition of the play “Bliznetsy” (“Twins”) by Vadim Shershenevich based on Shakespeare’s comedy “Twelfth Night . ” The play was written for a performance at the Moscow Operetta Theater (1939, composer A. Shenshin). The text of “Bliznetsy” was first published in 2022. The aim of this work was to analyze the artistic originality of the comedy text in the context of disputes on Shakespeare’s legacy conducted in the USSR in the 1930s. Based on archival documents, the authors recreate the history of writing “Bliznetsy” (in 1933-1938), analyze the discussions around the acceptability of the comic opera genre in relation to Shakespeare’s plays, the debates on the musical and literary dramaturgy of the play. Moreover, the article considers the principles of compositional restructuring in “Bliznetsy,” the poetic originality of the play, translation decisions and creative successes of Shershenevich, in particular, in writing comic dialogues. Despite the rare genre and unusually loose treatment of the original text, the production was recognized as one of the examples of an innovative Soviet musical performance and set a new tone in the translation of Shakespearean comedies. In particular, the refusal to copy Shakespeare’s puns led to the search for equivalent Russian comic elements, which were considered successful. For poet Shershenevich, previously known as a futurist and imagist, the work on the libretto provided an opportunity to apply creative power at a time when his own poems and translations were not published.