Borya has got into lather. The house is all a mess. Telephone calls, togs, papers - everything is up-side down and topsy-turvy.
Some bozos, ten in number, are dashing about the 100 sq. m. apartment as if at the dog racings.
There are cries, guffaw and threats everywhere. Borya speaks from whisper to shouting. Every now and then, a bad word "faggots", used in different meanings and implications, but with the same strain, rends the room. Borya is preparing for the Yours Forever "reporting back anniversary" concert. He is to report back for 30 years of stage life, and to celebrate his 50th anniversary. A good round figure is to be on the 4th of March. On March 6 and 7 the people will gather to celebrate the date at the Rossiya Concert Hall.
A hackneyed cliché: You don’t look your age" is not really to the point. Borya looks quite a middle-aged man in accordance with all so-called outer physiological features, but for the skittish tuft on a dyed short-cut upper. There is boyish vivacity of ethos all around him. All these earrings draw an absolutely surrealistic picture...
"A "Blue Moon[i]" benefit performance was made of me, but actually I have nothing to do with all the stuff",
Borya starts dwelling upon the sore point, giving himself a minute rest from the bustling.
- And I just want to live and work, tour this country with my concerts.
I’ve got a soul of mine as well as the songs. I’ve something to tell the people and I want to bring them light, joy and love of all the colors of the rainbow! I have never had anything to hide as well as I had nothing to impose. I have never in my life come across the situation when someone wanted to hit me in the face, and call a fag...
Moiseyev have just finished his tour of the Moscow region. It was a triumph and a sellout, but at the same time the tour was marred by the scandal. Local authorities of Podolsk and Klin banned his concerts and people were returned their ticket money.
Borya is lit up:
Klin is the hometown of Tchaikovsky, it is very symbolic! Why can’t I sing here? Everyone plays his own symphony, his own music...
Is there anything they don’t know about me? Don’t they know I am sodomite? (Laughs). I am not a sodomite! I am straight! Gay - but straight. A man with love and respect towards the others. Towards PEOPLE! They mix homosexuality and pederasty. It is pederasty when people, my audience, are deprived of the right to come to see me and vice versa. I am deprived of the opportunity to come to my audience and to bring them joy. Does it look like pederasty?... Didn’t I visit Afghanistan or Chernobyl? Yes, I did! I represented my country at the international contests. What’s wrong with me, what’s the problem? Do they have any right to do this? Am I a leprotic?
Borya’s simmering anger is on the brink of spilling out. He stops talking and gives a sup of tea and gradually calms down. With the air of a doomed lamb, he switches to a hoarse whisper:
It’s not too hard to me, because I’ve already got accustomed to it. One should just have a charisma and a clear understanding of your goals, if you lead somewhere. Many people vituperate, saying it’s been too long ago that I should have left the stage. I didn’t do it because the main principle of mine has always been not to annoy the others. You ask me about scandals? But it is not me who boosts them. It is certainly done by someone. I appeared on the stage wearing tricot and a corset - it was boosted into a crazy something. Moiseyev is wearing body stockings! All the ballet dancers across the globe do the same thing. What shall we do about it?!
I was given a new song of the premiere bloc, called Siny Lyod (Blue Ice). Borya turns on a maximum sound volume, windowpanes are trembling, the singer starts to dance. I try to blather something like "You had a Blue Moon, now you’ve got a Blue Ice..." "Have you ever seen a red ice?" that was a sarcastic response from Borya, waving his hands. - Blue Moon is the matter of the past. It is all over and done with, finita! People are waiting for you to give them something new. And I’ll do it. I’ve got some sort of trump card song - Zolotaya moya (My sweetheart). It is a mega hit! I swear the song will be the real riot for the country...
To reach the goal the dancer and the choreographer, Moiseyev who has been making serious testing of our ears by means of his singing, has at last made a decision to have a tutor for vocal. It was at his producer Yevgeny Fridland’s urgent request.
"You can’t imagine how hard were those vocal lessons for me!", wrinks up the "dancing teacher", having seen the light all of a sudden (at the age of fifty!). I’ve got to teach my voice!
Borya wasn’t angered by a caustic remark "isn’t it too late?" He just falls into explanations:
You see, earlier it was my soul that I had been singing with. It won’t work too much, as it did in Glukhonemaya Lyubov[ii] (Dumb and deaf Love) or in Shchelkunchik[iii] (Nutcracker). Today it is important to a be a professional singer for your songs to be broadcasted by the radio stations. All the requirements are changing, the professionalism criteria have grown drastically. One should be in line with them. Of course, I’m not to become another Caruso or even Baskov. It would have been a real fun. I should just find my own way of correct singing. And to sweeten it to a certain extent. To sweeten the style, not the timbre.
It was Valeria[iv], who taught everybody all these little clocks, umbrellas, buttons, asses, blue, black, red... And all the people want just this...
As it is usual for Borya’s concerts that after the first part of the show, which is to consist of 15 new songs by so to say "staff composer" Kim Breitburg, there will be a second part, during which a "forever ours" singer will welcome his guests. The people whom he loves, respects; the people who sympathized with and helped him during his harsh times. And Borya’s times have always been harsh.
The phenomenon of my 30 year stage life is the greatest mystery of the times. It is really so, given all the authorities, regimes, homophobias and crackdowns... And here I am now, celebrating my jubilee with nothing to be ashamed of, full of dignity and self-assurance. I’ve got no sponsors to give me anything. I earned everything myself, with my own hands, legs and brains... You know, everyone tries to survive using his own means. An actually there was help given to me, especially at the beginning of my career and I am full of gratitude to this people. I had a very unexpected help from Kobzon[v]! I’ll remember it to the grave. Alla (Pugacheva[vi]) also gave me a hand as well as Zykina[vii]. They didn’t pass me by. And they could have done it, saying, "to hell with this fag... And every time I tell people "Yours forever" - I always tell it like it is. I remember everything and everybody who gave a hand, as well as those who are close to me now and, of course, I always remember my audience - the people who trust me, wait for me and give me the warmth of their hearts, feeling my heartfulness towards them...
[i] Blue Moon (Golubaya Luna) - Moiseyev’s song that brought him immense popularity.
[ii] Another Moiseyev’ famous song
[iii] See above
[iv] Russian pop star
[v] Iosif Kobzon - well known Soviet and Russian crooner
[vi] Alla Pugacheva - a Soviet and Russian singer, pop super star
[vii] Lyudmila Zykina - a Soviet era patriotic and folk songs singer