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Tolstoy's Last Days

This theatrical concert recounts the dramatic final days of Tolstoy’s life when at the age of 83 he fled his wife and estates only to die tragically eleven days later at the Astapovo train station. A narrative based on diaries and letters of Tolstoy and his wife, combined with excerpts from his short story, The Death of Ivan Ilych, recounts his final predicament, during which the imagined life and death of a fictional character closely parallels the writer’s own personal voyage.

The text, intertwined with music by Rachmaninoff for violin, cello, and piano, including the Trio Elégiaque and the haunting Vocalise, creates a theatrical concert that epitomizes Russian tragedy and soulfulness.

Tolstoy’s Last Days was part of our 2007-2008 and 2005-2006 Seasons.

2007-2008 Season

Imaginings

Ensemble for the Romantic Century celebrated its seventh season by embarking on a revealing journey through the imaginations of four writers. Delving into a broad spectrum of the Romantic sensibility, each of the four concerts presented a highly individual vision of an imaginary life, from the sublimation of reality into poetry and fiction to a visionary voyage to the outer limits of space. The concerts contemplated the myriad facets of human fantasy and creativity, of our desire to transcend reality by constructing alternative narratives, and of our belief in the limitless potential of the human mind.