Secrets of the "Bat": What Lyudmila Maksakova still regrets

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

40 years ago, Jan Fried's musical The Bat was released, and since then it has not left the screens on holidays. This adaptation of the operetta by Johann Strauss is one of the five best Soviet cinema operettas and is one of the best film adaptations of this work in the world. But at that time for the director it was a great experiment, the success of which even the main characters were not sure …

There is a version that when writing the work "The Bat" Johann Strauss was based on an anecdotal case from real life: allegedly, once during a masquerade ball, the unfaithful spouse did not recognize his wife in a mask and began to look after her. There was also a legend that once at a masquerade, two friends had such a drink that one of them woke up on a bench in a city park in a bat costume, and for this cruel joke arranged by his friend, he took revenge on him by catching him in a spousal treason. The first productions of The Bat were not popular with the audience, and critics called them banal and mediocre. Only 20 years later, the performance was appreciated, and since then it has been staged more than once in theaters around the world and has been repeatedly filmed. In Russia, for the first time on the stage, "The Bat" appeared back in 1933.

His first musical film - "Twelfth Night" - Jan Fried shot back in 1955, but only in the 1970s, when the director was already well over 60, he was not afraid to experiment and began to shoot operettas. His first experience in this genre was "Dog in the Manger", and at the age of 70 he began filming the operetta "The Bat". In fact, the film cannot be called a film adaptation of the work of the King of the Viennese operetta Johann Strauss - the literary basis of the plot was a text rewritten by Soviet authors back in the 1930s, in fact it was a newly created script. Many critics unanimously said that Jan Fried's version of The Bat was much more dynamic and interesting than the original.

Opera singers, the best artists of that time, actually sang for all the actors. They were selected in such a way that the timbre of their voices corresponded to the voices of the actors. Alexander Murashko sang for the hero of Vitaly Solomin, Larisa Shevchenko for the heroine of Lyudmila Maksakova. The heroine of Larisa Udovichenko sings in the voice of Sofia Yalysheva, and the hero of Yuri Solomin - in the voice of Vladimir Barlyaev. For many, it will probably come as a surprise that the then little-known actor Boris Smolkin sang for Igor Dmitriev - in fact, he is an opera singer by training. First, the phonogram was recorded, and then the actors on the set had to "pretend" the singing, adjusting to the singers. The successful selection of the best singers and the best actors, combined with the music of Strauss, resulted in the success of the film.

Before filming began, Jan Fried invited all the actors and singers to his home so that they could meet and communicate in an informal family atmosphere. Soon such gatherings became a good tradition - in the evenings they discussed work on the film and argued about their heroes. Lyudmila Maksakova, laughing, said: ""

Many actors remained on friendly terms with the director for life. So, Igor Dmitriev, who played the role of the head of the prison in The Bat, was very warm to Jan Frid. Once the director said that he was very surprised that Dmitriev never refuses to appear in his films (and there were 7 of them!), Although this does not bring him high fees. The actor replied: "".

In the main female role, Jan Fried initially saw only Lyudmila Maksakova, but then she was at the peak of popularity, and it seemed to him that he would not be able to convince her to consent - after all, before that she had refused to star in "The Dog in the Manger." She still regrets this decision - after all, this film was incredibly popular with viewers and glorified another actress, Margarita Terekhova. Then Maksakova realized that it would be very foolish to miss such a role one more time. And when she got a call from Lenfilm, she immediately agreed. And today she only regrets that she played only in one musical film by Jan Fried. Years later, the actress admitted: "".

In this film, the Solomin brothers starred together, which was a very rare case. Yuri Solomin said: "". They found out that they would work together only when they met at Lenfilm. The brothers really always had a difficult relationship - they were completely different people and equally talented actors. Friends said that Vitaly Solomin in real life was the complete opposite of his hero: his theater director was cheerful, talkative and mischievous, and the actor himself was described as a gloomy and withdrawn person.

Larisa Udovichenko dreamed of the role of Adele in "The Bat" - for her it was a gift of fate, because she had to play along with the masters of Soviet cinema, even in episodes, Jan Fried used famous artists: Sergei Filippov, Yevgeny Vesnik, Alexander Demyanenko. However, she was approved at once - the director was looking for an actress similar to the young Tselikovskaya. Udovichenko understood that she did not have an external resemblance, but in makeup and in a suit she was able to reincarnate so that she was able to convince the director. This role was her first and only in the genre of operetta.

The role of ugly Lotte, whom her mother teaches to shoot with her eyes, was played by Olga Volkova. At that time she was already 40, and had to play "a girl of marriageable age." These characters were not in the classic libretto - they were added to the script of the film, like some other episodic characters. This role became a landmark for Olga Volkova - although she starred in films since 1965, viewers began to recognize her only after 40 years, when she starred in "The Bat" and in "Station for Two" in the role of Violetta.

Unfortunately, in recent years, Yuri Solomin rarely appears on screens: Why the famous actor stopped acting in films.