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SOLDIERS OF MUSIC: ROSTROPOVICH RETURNS TO RUSSIA (TV)

Summary

This documentary explores the return of conductor and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his family to the Soviet Union after an exile of twelve years. Produced by Maysles brothers' protégé Susan Froemke, the film incorporates the characteristic vérité format of the groundbreaking filmmakers. The film includes interviews conducted by reporter Mike Wallace interspersed with tours of the family's old homes, still photos and recordings of their music, and coverage of the concerts in which Rostropovich conducts and plays with the Washington, D.C., National Symphony Orchestra. The family returns to crowds of people who gather outside the airport and the Rostropovich home to welcome them. At a press conference, Rostropovich's wife, former Russian opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, talks about how she and her husband were stripped of their citizenship in 1978. Included here are still pictures and newspaper clippings depicting their exile. A reporter asks why they returned when fellow exile Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel prize-winning writer whom they risked their life to protect while still in Russia, was not asked back. Rostropovich takes this occasion to reiterate his view that they will not be fully content until Solzhenitsyn is asked home. Once at home, the Rostropoviches toast and eat, greeting family and friends they have not seen in years. The family members are obviously touched by the attention they have received since their arrival. Rostropovich rehearses for his concert in Moscow the following day. In the pandemonium that forms around him, Wallace and Rostropovich's daughter Olga talk about the hardship that the departure from the Soviet Union brought to her mother. She also explains that, when her parents met, her mother was the more famous of the two. Next the mother and daughter visit the Bolshoi theater, and Vishnevskya relives memories of singing in the opera there. In an interview with Wallace, Rostropovich discusses his deep affection for the music of Shostakovich and Prokofiev and his strong connections with his contemporaries, Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn. The family then visits the grave of Sakharov, a former nuclear physicist turned human-rights advocate who was also exiled from the Soviet Union. Rostropovich then visits his boyhood home and discusses his childhood. The family next travels to Leningrad, where Rostropovich conducts another concert. Vishnevskya visits her old home and reflects on her childhood. Before they leave, the family members visit the country home in which they housed Solzhenitsyn during the long period of censorship before his exile. After one week, they prepare to return to the United States.

(Part of this program is in Russian with English subtitles.)

Details

  • NETWORK: PBS
  • DATE: November 30, 1989
  • RUNNING TIME: 1:28:48
  • COLOR/B&W: Color
  • CATALOG ID: T:64064
  • GENRE: Arts documentaries
  • SUBJECT HEADING: Biography; Cello music; Communism and liberty; Conductors; Refugees, Political
  • SERIES RUN: PBS - TV, 1991
  • COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

  • Susan Froemke … Producer, A film by
  • Peter Gelb … Producer, A film by
  • Nell Archer … Associate Producer
  • Bob Eisenhardt … Production (Misc.), Film Editor, A film by
  • Albert Maysles … Production (Misc.), Camera, Cinematographer, A film by
  • Ed Lachman … Production (Misc.), Camera, Cinematographer
  • National Symphony Orchestra … Symphony Orchestra
  • Mike Wallace … Reporter
  • Sergei Prokofiev
  • Mstislav Rostropovich
  • Olga Rostropovich
  • Andrei Sakharov
  • Dmitri Shostakovich
  • Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  • Galina Vishnevskaya