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Tohtori Zhivago in Helsinki

Janos Gereben on December 17, 2013
<em>Doctor Zhivago</em>, the musical
Doctor Zhivago, the musical

That's Doctor Zhivago as a musical in Helsinki, and it sounds rather awful. As many notable failures (and great successes), it began in California, according to an anonymous blog by a 20-year-old Finn:

Doctor Zhivago, a musical by Lucy Simon, Michael Korie, Amy Powers, and Michael Weller, has only been produced three times before: a test run in a Californian theatre in 2006, then a revised production premiering in Australia in 2011 and a run in Korea in 2012. So, Helsingin kaupunginteatteri's production will not only be the Nordic premiere, it'll be the first production of the musical in the whole Europe!

After last year's Fiddler on the Roof, the king of all overdone classics, I'm glad Helsingin kaupunginteatteri is taking a chance with an unknown musical. Though, from what I saw and heard in the season opening, I feel a strange familiarity... The musical is based on Boris Pasternak's classic novel where the events are tied to a revolutionary movement. The director Hans Berndtsson told that the piece's central themes are love and pain. It was mentioned the musical is sung-through.

"Doctor Zhivago is a story is about love in all of its most difficult forms, but it's also describes the suffering of the Russian people in the beginning of the 20th century", Berndtsson described the musical's plot. "The original novel is one of the darkest in history, but the theme of love draws people to it."

Sounds rather familiar, right? The original Les Misérables premieres in Tampere this fall, so Finnish audiences can compare the two themselves. Or maybe Zhivago is Helsingin kaupunginteatteri's late answer to Svenska Teatern's Kristina från Duvemåla – yet another spectacle that strongly resembles Les Mis?

I don't think you can go wrong with Tuukka Leppänen [in the title role], and no complaints about the other leads, such as Anna-Maija Tuokko, Marika Westerling, Esko Roine and Antti Timonen, either.

The blog then casually mentions that the theater had 13 (thirteen!) other premieres this fall, and expresses doubt that "anyone over 10 but under 40 years old would find the selections too interesting — children's plays, parenting troubles, the struggles of the elderly..."