About the opera "The Life of Fools"

Initially, it was Sedrak Yerkanyan, a conductor, who came up with an idea of staging an opera based on H. Tumanyan's tales. He suggested that David Sakoyan should compose music for it. According to the original Yerkanyan's plan, the opera was supposed to have four acts, each of which had its own autonomous plot, not connected to any other acts. But as Sakoyan was composing the opera, he grew increasingly inclined to the idea of making a more interconnected plot. As a result, the four tales have recurring characters who find themselves in various plots and situations, which is exposed, among all, at the musical level.

It is also worth mentioning that having started the work on this opera, Sakoyan interrupted his work on a sequence of preludes and fugues. This sequence is now called "Five spiritual preludes and fugues", although more movements were originally planned.

Below is the synopsis.

Tale 1: The Clever and the Stupid

Once upon a time, there were two brothers, one was Clever, the other was Stupid. The Clever was exhausting the Stupid with hard work. In the end the Stupid decided that he had had enough of it and that he wanted to live separately. When they were partitioning their property the Clever gave the Stupid only one scraggy and scabby calf. The Stupid went to sell it. On his way he was singing a song and in the mountains he heard an echo. Stupid as he was, he did not realize that it was an echo and started talking to it. By the end of this conversation he decided that he had found a customer to sell the calf. The "agreement" was that he would leave the calf there in the mountains and on the next day he would come to get his payment.

Next day, the Stupid came back to find the bones of the calf. He started demanding his money, but the echo refused to pay. Finally, the Stupid got angry and started whacking the rocks with a stick. Suddenly golden coins started pouring out of the rock: he happened to hit the spot where a treasure had been buried. But he did not realize it either, so he took only one coin, the amount they had "agreed on" the previous day, and left.

When he came home the Clever brother asked about his progress. The Stupid told him that he had sold the calf to the rocks in the mountains and got paid, although the customer had been trying to fool him. The Clever understood it was a treasure the Stupid stumbled upon and told his brother to show him the place. They were arguing for a while, but in the end the Clever promised the Stupid to buy him new clothes (for which he took his coin). The Stupid, happy about the prospect, showed his brother the way.

The Clever got rich, the Stupid was left with nothing, not even the new clothes. The Stupid tried to complain to the Judge, but the Judge did not believe his story and chased him away.

Tale 2: Barekendan

Barekendan (literally 'the good living') is a celebration in the Armenian Christian tradition that comes before each fasting period (which are several during a year). A feast is a major part of such celebrations. This tradition is somewhat similar to Maslenitsa that comes before the Lent in the Russian Orthodox tradition.

The Husband brings home a huge stock of rice and oil. His wife named Huri is scolding him and insists that he should tell her why he needs such a stock (supposedly for a commemoration or some other family occasion). The Husband finally tells her that he is going to keep this for Barekendan. Huri, satisfied with the answer, is now waiting for a man named Barekendan to come and take this rice and oil. She also hopes that he will take her with him as well and then she will have a careless life. She doesn't mind being called "The Lazy Huri" for that.

Meanwhile, a Stranger is passing by. Huri asks him if he by any chance is Barekendan. The Stranger is puzzled and suggests that the woman is out of her mind. He is curious to know what comes next and pretends that he indeed is Barekendan. Huri gives him the stock of rice and oil and he runs away hurriedly. Huri is angry and sad that he left her behind.

The Husband returns home to find out that Barekendan came and took his stuff. He gets angry, takes his horse and rides after the Stranger.

He meets the Stranger on his way, but is unaware that it is him. So the Husband asks him if he saw a man around. The Stranger suspects it is Huri's husband and decides to fool him. He confirms that the man indeed passed by a while ago and suggests the best way to get him. The Husband should give him the horse and follow that man on foot. While the horse moves its four legs (one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four) the thief on his two legs moves twice as fast (one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two). The Husband finds it convincing and gives the horse to the Stranger.

After a while the Husband returns home with no luck. Huri scolds him for losing the horse. The spouses argue again.

Tale 3: The Lazy Huri

Huri is living with her Mother. Huri is terribly lazy, she does not want to do any chores and always finds excuses for doing nothing. The Mother reproaches Huri for her laziness, but then, trying to console her, loudly praises her for being hard working.

A young Merchant hears this while passing by. He decides that he wants to have such a hard working wife and proposes to Huri. They get married. Huri's Mother feels ambivalent about it. On the one hand, she is happy that her daughter got a nice husband, on the other hand she is worried that he will reveal that in fact Huri is lazy.

Meanwhile, the Merchant brings home a lot of cotton. He is going to go far away to trade and wants Huri to turn this cotton into yarn while he is on business. Then he will sell the yarn and they will become rich.

Huri likes the prospect of becoming rich, but once she is at home alone she does not even think of working. Instead she recalls a story of two sisters named Kekel and Pepel. Once upon a time, they were making yarn on a river bank, fell into the water and turned into frogs. Since then they have been making yarn inside the river. Huri hears frogs croaking and decides that they agree to do the job for her. She throws cotton into the water and goes away.

After a while, Huri comes back to the river and sees that the cotton is now covered in moss. She thinks that the frogs made a carpet for themselves and left her with nothing. She reproaches them and insists that in this case they should pay. Suddenly she finds a big piece of gold in the water. She leaves praising the frogs.

The Merchant returns home. Huri shows him the piece of gold and tells him that she sold her work. The Merchant is amazed and praises his wife. He invites Huri's Mother to celebrate such a great deal arranged by her daughter. The Mother realizes that Huri was just lucky and worries that next time things could go not so smoothly.

At that moment a wasp flies in and the Mother suddenly starts greeting her politely calling her "Auntie". The Merchant is perplexed and asks why she is acting like that. The Mother explains that once this wasp was a human, her Auntie, but she was working all the time and in the end turned into a wasp. The Merchant is terrified by the prospect that his wife could also turn into a wasp and declares that he will never let her work again.

Tale 4: Kikos

On the stage, there are the Father, the Mother, the Daughter and the Son-in-Law. They are having a feast commemorating the characters of the previous tales. They mention the Clever and the Stupid brothers, Huri's Mother and Barekendan.

The Mother asks the Daughter to fetch some water. The Daughter refuses, the Father gets angry. The Son-in-Law is not following, he is looking for another personality to commemorate and recollects the Auntie that turned into a wasp.

Meanwhile the Father goes on scolding the Daughter. He recalls that he still has not cut an old tree near the brook. Being angry with his Daughter he threatens that one day she will have a son named Kikos and he will go to the brook, climb that tree, fall down and die. While threatening, the Father begins to believe in his story as if it has already happened. He goes to the brook to see the place of the tragedy. The others are at a loss why he disappeared. The Mother suspects he went to the brook and goes there too. At first she does not understand what happened, but the Father tells her the story and convinces her that it is true. Now they are grieving together.

The Daughter and her husband proceed with the feast. At a certain point they notice that the Father and the Mother have disappeared. The Son-in-Law is trying to get his wife to go and look for them, but she does not want to. Then he orders her to at least go and fetch some water.

The Daughter comes to the brook to find both the Father and the Mother there. They tell her about the late Kikos and she joins their grieving.

The Son-in-Law sees that no one is coming back and wonders why they disappeared. He goes to look for them. He finds all of them at the brook and hears the story of his misfortunate son Kikos. Unlike the others, he does not grieve, but instead calls them back home to proceed with the commemoration, because they cannot help the dead boy anyway.

The family is back home. Suddenly the Son-in-Law realizes that for all this time he has been unaware of his son's existence. When he asks how it happened, the others resume grieving about the late Kikos and blaming the Father for not cutting the old tree.