ANNA KARENINA

Musical dramaturgy

The novel

Tolstoy begins his novel: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." There are three love-stories in the novel. Constantin Levin´s and Kitty´s family is happy like all other families and their petty quarrels appear to us outsiders as funny episodes belonging to the first stages of young love. Anna Karenina´s and Aleksei Vronsky´s relationship is unhappy because the society condemns it. Contrary to that, Anna´s brother Stiva´s and Dolly´s relationship is unhappy because the society does not condemn the adultery in it. Stiva represents the general morality of the nobility, or rather, the double-morality of it. His love of humanity gives him his personal character. He feels for other people but fails to understand the pain his conduct causes his wife. Dolly complies to her part as the betrayed wife at the same time that another part of her is seeking a way out of the situation.

In Anna Karenina two grand stories and a smaller one are woven together: those of Levin and Kitty and Anna and Vronsky, and on the other hand that of Stiva and Dolly. The essential question of the dramaturgy is always choosing the focus between the two main stories. Film-makers have usually chosen the story of Anna and Aleksey Vronsky. The choice is difficult, however, since without the story of Levin and Kitty, the novel would be just another love-story. Thus, Levin is never completely omitted from the script, but the danger remains that he is reduced to a marginal character. On the other hand too much emphasis on Levin and Kitty disturbs the narration, which is problematic even in the novel, not to mention in a film or theatre version. Whatever the solution, omitting Levin would render the whole story commonplace.

Point of view

We examine all aspects of  love and things related to it. Love includes passion, joy, suspicion, envy and happiness but all this can extinguish the feelings of the other. Love includes also death and in this story it affects mostly Anna, but also Levin and Kitty and somewhat also Karenin.

Alongside with creative work and birth, love and death are the two greatest things a man encounters in his life. A man has to learn to live with and deal with love and death, despite their irreconcilable discrepancy. It is difficult to try to imagine a person who has never experienced any form of love, but the fact is that a number of people have to live without it. Each and everyone of us has to die and that makes us wonder why we live.

Man has many answers to the questions concerning his existence. Most answers arise from religions, only a small number of people are content with purely philosophical answers. A thoroughly happy person does not necessarily ask the question in the first place, because he has already found the answer, unaware of it as he may be. Yet an unhappy person desperately seeks the answer and clutches on to love like a man drowning, because falling in love pushes everything else aside.

When we wonder why Anna´s happiness does not last and why her relationship with Vronsky falls apart, we start to understand why Levin´s story is essential in the novel. Levin has won the heart of the woman he loves, he has a beautiful child and a happy home. Yet why, despite all that, he too is on the verge of suicide when Anna throws herself under the train?

Levin has his work and love, over which the death of his brother casts a shadow. It is exactly work that can  atone for the discrepancy between birth, love and death, as soon as a person comprehends the significance of it in the totality of life. To most people religion also offers relief, as is the case with Kitty. The ontological question, however, is always a personal one and to some people like Levin, a very difficult one.

Levin finds the answer at the last minute, uttered by a simple peasant, and his life falls back on the right track. But Anna throws herself under a train. Anna´s life lacks the decisive element: work. Losing her child for Anna has resulted in losing an essential substance in her life: the raising of her child, the work for the well-being of her son. And that was exactly the force that made her endure her loveless marriage. When finally she finds love, she loses the other force that holds her together. All she is left with is love and guilt. That is why she cannot love Vronsky as an independent person, but starts to hang on to him which begins to erode the relationship.

Thus, it can be said that on the subjective level all the main characters seek happiness, i.e. they try to find substance in their lives and love plays an important part in the quest. But the quest is not always conscious. Sometimes a person runs away from his malaise and repeats the mistakes he has made earlier.

Unjustice - whether it be against people in general or someone in particular - creates rebellion, the result of which can be unexpected.

On the objective level of the story the right for love is questioned as rebellion against the community, in this case the nobility and the moral principles of the fashionable society. They approve of adultery but not the public defending of it. Anna rebels openly against the double-morality of the society, a fact that has made her a heroine for almost a hundred years already, for various rules and regulations and a certain hypocrisy attached to them is a feature of our own time as well. In the objective story Anna fights, whereas in the subjective story she runs away from her self and therefore loses her battle where Levin finally wins his own. At the end Anna´s death puts prevailing moral principles under suspicion.

The musical

Our dramaturgy concentrates on the triangle of Anna, Vronsky and Karenin. The story of Anna and Vronsky is a tragic one. Where the stormy relationship of Anna and Aleksey destroy two people, the quarrels of Levin and Kitty are comic. And thereof arises the nuclear point of the adaptation and the musical. Even though Levin is the philosophical opposite to Anna´s way of life and her sensuality, the love-story of Kitty and Levin is playfully humorous when contrasted with the deep, passionate love of Anna and Aleksey, two experienced adults in love. Levin is thus the philosophical counterpoint as well as together with Kitty the soubrette in the musical.

Society, namely the high society, plays an important part in the story of Anna and Vronsky also in the musical. On one hand it induces, even admires adultery and infidelity, but on the other hand it is a merciless judge if one sidetracks from its unwritten moral principles. The society approves of double-morality but not an open rebellion against its moral doctrines. Anna is a rebellion and her brother Stiva the characteristic representative of the double-morality atoned by the society.