Rockin’ Rachmaninoff

Writer, actor and pianist Hershey Felder excels with the Ensemble Theatre Company’s latest world premiere production Rachmaninoff and the Tsar at the New Vic.

Known internationally for his solo composer plays, for the first time he appears opposite another actor – British-Italian Jonathan Silvestri – in the role of the doomed ruler of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II; father of the four grand duchesses and young tsarevich who were murdered, along with the Tsar’s wife Alexandra and four members of the royal staff, by Bolsheviks in a dingy cellar in Ekaterinburg in 1918, their bodies dumped in mineshafts and burned.

Rachmaninoff safely left Russia during the 1917 revolution making his home in the U.S. In 1942, and at the age of 68, he became an American citizen and bought a home in Beverly Hills, where the show is staged in the garden complete with Steinway grand piano.

In the latter chapter of his life the composer tried to help “Anastasia,” who was thought to be the surviving grand duchess who lived through the carnage, and was now calling herself Anna Anderson. After her death she was shown to be a fake.

Featuring Rachmaninoff’s most beautiful works, including the “Second Piano Concerto,’ the “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” preludes, symphonic selections and more, the Trevor Hay directed 100-minute production is an absolute musical feast.

Fortunately Felder, who was recently named artistic director of Florence’s Teatro della Signoria as well as the city’s Teatro Niccolini, lives a short distance from Rome-based Silvestri, making it easier to work on the new production, one of more than 6,000 live performances in his 28 years of continuous stage productions in the U.S. and abroad.

You’ll definitely be russian to see this….