Colombe, or Paper Roses

About

A Russian-original musical based on Jean Anouilh's play Colombe (1951), with score by Maxim Dunayevsky — one of the best-known contemporary Russian composers for stage and film — and libretto by Nikolai Denisov. The Kabare Buff staging is directed by the theatre's founder, Isaak Shtokbant. Anouilh's story: a young musician, Julien, leaves for three years of military service and entrusts his wife Colombe and their small son to his mother, the celebrated actress Madame Alexandra. In Alexandra's theatre world Colombe encounters everything her husband warned her against — flattery, seduction, the ordinary rot of green-room life — with the predictable result. Buff plays it as musical comedy that turns quietly serious. Performed in Russian; around two and a half hours with interval.