The Premiere of Grigori Efimovich

Andrew Paul Jackson's Grigori Efimovich: The Memory of Liars
premieres this month at the Boston Conservatory in Massachusetts. The
one-act opera, on which I served as librettist, details the shaky
connections between Felix Yusupov, a bumbling traitor to Russia's last
Tsar, and his co-conspirators in the death of Rasputin. The monk from
Siberia, Grigori Efimovich, has been called a sexual deviant, the devil
incarnate, and the downfall of imperialist Russia. He was also a
father, a mystic, and the beloved guardian of Alexei, the Tsarevich, a
sickly boy and the heir to the throne of the Russian Empire

The story of Rasputin's death achieved near-mythic status because,
in part, of Yusupov's Gothic-Horror account of the murder. Yusupov's
word is not to be trusted; the memory of liars is a flexible thing.

Based in part on the scholarship of Andrew Cook (To Kill Rasputin),
the opera attempts to detail the murder's participants -- including
Rasputin himself -- as historical men who lived and died at the onset
of the twentieth century. As opposed to caricatures, that is. If you're
in Boston, and interested to see the opera, please be advised that
seating is limited. The curtains go up Tuesday, April 28th, at 9 pm in
Senlly Hall.