Opera "The Golden Calf" is based on the comic masterpiece of the 20th century - "The Golden Calf" by Ilf and Petrov. "The Golden Calf" novel was published in Russia in 1928. Several Russian movie versions exist and the least successful one has made Russian sales higher than "Harry Potter". Tikhon Khrennikov composed "The Golden Calf" opera in Russian. I will present "The Golden Calf" to the international audience for the first time in English.
It took ten years to compose the opera. In Russian and English, after my own libretto. 135 minutes. The number of syllables in Russian and English coincide. After completion of the opera I decided to make the feature movie.Also in Russian and English. The movie script and opera libretto coincide. It happened for the first time in the music and movie history. I also invented 'Kostitsyn Draft', a new script format to replace 'Final Draft' common in Hollywood. Unlike Final Draft Kostitsyn Draft makes music soundtrack an integral part of a script. An example of the script written in Kostitsyn Draft can be found here: http://www.kostitsyn.org/movie_golden_calf.php under "detail music and shooting instructions".
Some music material from "The Golden Calf" opera will be used for movie soundtrack.
I wrote my own version of "The Golden Calf", added, changed and removed characters, altered the plot. For example: my underground Soviet millionaire Alexander Korejko is interested in boys. His personality is divided and performed by two actors(singers): Korejko I and Korejko II. Zosia Sinitskaya, a girlfriend of Ostap Bender and Korejko, is in fact a male pretending to be a girl.
It is difficult to determine genre of "The Golden Calf". This is a Biblical story, detective, comedy, drama, theater of the absurd... The plot, involving gangs and racketeering, and the period of the 1920's, associates this work with "Public Enemy" and "The Godfather".
Targeted audience (based on analysis of Russian audience of "The Golden Calf") - everyone from 5 year olds and older regardless of race, religion, culture and education.
The opera is waiting to be premiered.
The high budget movie will feature major artists and different locations in the US.