H i s t o r i c a l   N o v e l

LA PLEVITSKAYA

ATTENTION: Due to an erratic internat connection we may not get your mail. Pls phone (61-8-8263 0090) or write.

A Gypsy singer's life in Tsarist Russia and in exile

EXTRACTS OF REVIEW

SINGING IN HADES

Critical review by Valeriy Filatov, formerly "New Generation" newspaper, Alma Ata, Kazakhstan

La Plevitskaya is a historical-novel written in English by native German speaker and writer Ally Hauptmann-Gurski on the subject of Russian history, culture, and music. It is a biography of a once very famous Gypsy singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya .......

Ally Hauptmann-Gurski discovered a gramophone record of two folk songs by Plevitskaya accompanied by Sergey Rakhmaninov which was truly amazing since Rakhmaninov was known as a musician who refused to make recordings as an accompanist. Not even Shalyapin, who used to be a close friend of his, ever had the priviledge. .........

The story of Plevitskaya’s life is an example of a destiny of an extraordinary talent during extreme times. There are no doubts about Plevitskaya’s exceptionality. Every Gypsy tabor had talented singers but Plevitskaya was the only one who became His Imperial Majesty’s Soloist. ...................

The writer convincingly motivates Plevitskaya’s active participation in her husband’s deeds with her efforts to gain forgiveness from the Kremlin and permission to go back to Russia at any price.....................

The subject of music and in particular the Russian musical culture, is of course one of the most important themes in the novel. The author shows that diffusion between the upper and lower strata was a significant characteristic of the Russian musical culture of the beginning of the 20th century. This significance was embodied not only by the sounds of folk tunes ^{(including those of the Gypsies) in the compositions of Rakhmaninov and Stravinsky, but also in the destinies of Shalyapin and Plevitskaya. Even a paradoxical affinity between the advertised conservative Rakhmaninov and radical modernist Stravinsky did not escape the writer’s attention - this affinity goes beyond rhythm in their music but also touches on their lives after the revolution.}

An attentive reader can appreciate the author as a diligent and devoted follower of the German literature and intellectual tradition. The novel itself is a kind of musical exercise since it is built according to the rules of development of a musical form, using the Wagner-like leitmotif so common for German writers since Thomas Mann began the tradition. La Plevitskaya is a development of polyphonically interlacing motifs.   .....

The Rakhmanonov motif appears on the second page, and that is the brightest motif in the novel. He is a real friend ready to help or the vision of a possibility of a completely different life, a bright and pure one, as if another dimension of existence, something like Rakhmaninov’s Vocalise based on a Gypsy tune. The more the heroine is involved in espionage, the more distant and quiet this Vocalise becomes, reducing to silence shortly before Plevitskaya’s arrest.

The motif of ‘Teasing the Gadje’ is always in transformation..................

Overall La Plevitskaya makes for pleasurable reading and will fascinate both one who seeks an interesting plot and one with historic and cultural awareness about the era. In her preface Ally Hauptmann-Gurski promises to "delight, entertain, and astound". This promise is fulfilled.

Copyright 2006, Mrs. Ally Hauptmann-Gurski,  (NAATI accredited translator, German)

Ally Hauptmann-Gurski is a member of the Kensington Norwood Writers Group: http://www.freewebs.com/norwoodwriters/  (contains some useful writers links)

  So what's happening in a writer's life, from one day to the next?

www.users.bigpond.com/artifex2/allyblog.htm