The performance features fragments of works by Georg Friedrich Handel:
from the overture to the oratorio "Samson", the opera "Rodelinda", Suite No. 3 in D minor: Allegro
The editions used in the creation of the play were:
"Correspondence of the Russian Empress Catherine II and Mr. Voltaire,
which lasted from 1763 to 1778" (Free Printing House of Garia and Company, 1803).
"Catherine II and Voltaire. Correspondence" ("Dmitry Pozharsky University", 2022)
 
The set design for the play used:
a reprint of Voltaire's print drawing, presented on March 10, 1869
in the journal L'Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux*
a reprint of the map "Plan of the Movements of the Attack and the Perfect Victory over the Enemy
of Her Imperial Majesty's victorious Troops in Moldavia at the Larga River 1770 July 7".
reprints of fragments of letters of Empress Catherine II

The new performance by Nikita Kobelev, the Alexandrinsky Theatre's chief director, continues the line of works devoted to the comprehension of Russian history on the national stage. The literary basis is the original texts of correspondence between the Russian Empress Catherine the Great (1729-1796) and the French thinker, the first philosopher and writer of the Age of Enlightenment Voltaire (1694-1778).

The correspondence between them lasted 15 years, from 1763 to 1778. The Russian reader a fairly complete corpus of texts (185 letters) for the first time became available only in 2022, with the publication of "Catherine II and Voltaire. Correspondence." Today, the epistolary conversations between the Russian autocrat and the French freethinker are a monument of the epoch, but also a testament to the characters, a novel of relations between two great people who respected and loved each other.

Catherine thinks with Voltaire the widest range of topics: from politics and the structure of the state to the natural sciences and modern literature. In the center of correspondence - the conflict between the Russian and Ottoman empires, issues of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774 years. The creation of a new Russian legal system - a set of lawbooks - is discussed. They talk about many things; the need for smallpox vaccination, Swiss watches and even discuss Russia as the home of elephants, which at the time were not very different from mammoths.

All the texts of the letters heard in the play (with the exception of the prologue and epilogue) are authentic, historical correspondence. Sharpness of thought, imagery of phrase, elegance of flattery, duel and friendship of two great contemporaries - all this is preserved in the letters and included in the poetics of the play. "Catherine and Voltaire" - partly also an homage to the French theater of the XVIII century, with its elegant irony and farcical nature. And at the same time, it is the story of the development of the personality of the Russian Empress, who considered herself a student of Voltaire.

The premiere is September 8, 2024

  Alexandrinsky Theater thanks:
The Russian National Library and personally the head of the sector
"Center for the Study of the Age of Enlightenment - Voltaire's Library" Natalia Speranskaya
The State Hermitage Museum and personally senior researcher Natalia Bakhareva
  Alexandrinsky Theater thanks Tatiana Malysheva for her participation in the recording of the phonogram. 

        * "Assistant to researchers and the curious", based on the article:
Speranskaya N.M. Voltaire's coat of arms: a sign of nobility? // Russia and West European enlightenment.
In memory of N.A. Kopanev. Collection of scientific articles. RNB, 2016