The Blizzard

After Vladimir Sorokin (1955)

The Blizzard

In a version by Kirill Serebrennikov

World premiere

In German with English surtitles

‘And suddenly, he realized that the journey had not ended happily and that something new was beginning.’

When asked about his text, the author offers an answer that looks to the future. ‘I love snow. A blanket of snow covers the earth and makes everything beautiful. There are the upheavals and all the contradictions of our everyday lives, and then it snows and the world is beautiful,’ says Vladimir Sorokin when talking about his novella. Like works by Pushkin and Tolstoy, it carries the title Метель (The Blizzard) and, at first sight, reads like an intertext distilled from the Russian snowstorm tradition. ‘If you’re outside and get caught in a blizzard, that’s it. It’s a beautiful phenomenon, but also a terrible, fateful event. My story really has three protagonists: the doctor, his coachman and the blizzard. The third one wins out in the end.’

Much like the beauty of a snowy landscape, the 19th-century language in which Sorokin writes is also an illusion. The referential framework, character relationships and narrative style of his visionary writing initially lead the reader astray. The post-apocalyptic odyssey of Garin, a doctor who wants to bring a vaccine to a remote village where a mysterious plague is turning the inhabitants into zombies, takes place in the future.

On a retrofuturistic carriage ride through a vast white landscape — nothing in sight but snow — characters and readers alike lose all sense of distance and time. They come face to face with grotesque beings, giants and dwarfs, and experience erotic escapades and drug-fuelled hallucinations. These are so frightful that a simple life seems worth living again. The journey peters out, the catastrophe is put on hold and the mission goes unfulfilled.

The existential road novel culminates in a final showdown with the blizzard. A remarkable twist at the end hints at something new heading our way, something that will stretch our collective imagination to breaking point: the half-frozen doctor and his dead coachman are discovered by none other than the Chinese. Chinese collectors, who gather up anything vaguely usable, only to move on indifferently and leave this place of failure to the endlessly falling snow. But where do they take their spoils? And what comes after the end of the world as we know it?

When asked about his production, the director responds with a fragmentary montage of images: ‘Snow. Small horses. A glass pyramid. The path. Infinity. Longing. Storm. The nothing. Dream. Deception. Wind. Giants. Darkness. Doubt. Frozen time. Mistake. The lost world. Zombies. The vaccine. Destiny. Struggle. Death. Ice space. Redemption?‘

In Serebrennikov’s production as in Sorokin’s text, the blizzard is the main character. It has many voices, most of them female. It leads the way, sometimes into temptation. It scolds, dances, sings, withdraws into silence and raises momentous questions. It casts coldness over everything, along with a pall of sleep that must not be surrendered to. It takes us to the epicentre of a blinding brightness. Whiteout conditions. The horizon disappears; earth and sky merge as one. The world as we know it, colours and shapes all disappear; landmarks, contrasts and contours are dissolved. We find ourselves in the middle of a completely empty white space, infinitely expansive, and lose our balance.

This dizzying state of absolute disorientation defines the atmosphere of Kirill Serebrennikov’s production. An existential cabaret that plunges the audience into a world spinning out of control.
Where is down, where is up?
Where should I go?
Why go on at all?
How will it end?
With death or salvation?

Birgit Lengers

Vladimir Sorokin has been hailed as one of the most significant Russian writers of the last few decades and is among the most outspoken critics of the Russian state and its war against Ukraine. The internationally acclaimed director Kirill Serebrennikov was artistic director of the Gogol Centre in Moscow. After the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, he left Russia and is now based in Germany. In 2023, he founded his theatre company KIRILL & FRIENDS in Berlin.

Translation: Sebastian Smallshaw

Program and cast

August Diehl - Dr. Garin 

Filipp Avdeev - Perkhusha 

Sonja Beißwenger 

Yang Ge 

Malika - Maminova Marimba, Vibraphone, Percussion 

Belendjwa Peter 

Frol Podlesnyi - Live Camera 

Mikhail Poliakov - Keyboard 

Varvara Shmykova 

Claudius Steffens 

Kirill Serebrennikov - Director, Sets and Costumes 

Vlad Ogay - Sets and Costumes 

Alexander Manotskov - Music 

Daniil Orlov - Conductor 

Evgeny Kulagin, Ivan Estegneev - Choreography

Ilya Shagalov - Video Design 

Sergej Kuchar - Lighting Design 

Viacheslav Kasianov - Sound Design 

Alina Aleshchenko - Artistic Production Manager 

Birgit Lengers, Anna Shalashova - Dramaturgy

Elizaweta Veprinskaja - Assistant Sets and Costumes 

A co-production of the Salzburg Festival with the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and KIRILL & FRIENDS Company