The Fruits of Enlightenment

A musical performance based on a work by Leo Tolstoy.
The comedy’s plot begins late in the morning in the front room (anteroom) of a Moscow home belonging to the landowner Zvyozdintsev. The gentlemen have just woken up after a night of amusements—wine, cards, and spiritualism. Men also come into the anteroom of the landlord’s house with their request to sell the community the cultivated lands. For ordinary hardworking people, it seems ridiculous how the gentlemen spend their time. And it turns out that the superstitions of enlightened aristocrats and credentialed scientists are far more ridiculous—and dangerous—than the superstitions of a simple poor man whose life is crushed by need.