"Der Idiot ist unsere Wirklichkeit"

Alfred Schnittke’s opera Life with an Idiot is the subject of this broadly-based cultural-historical analysis, which turns its focus on the theme of the grotesque. When the opera, based on a short story by Viktor Erofeev, was premiered in Amsterdam in 1992 it was seen by reviewers as a sarcastic and grotesquely-caricatured look back at the Soviet past. The opera, like the story it is based on, is placed in its generic and historical context, including its engagement with significant composers such as Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. This study is not only an enduring contribution to the research on Schnittke, but also highlights the role of the grotesque beyond its musical manifestation in the context of its cultural-historical relationships with Russian literature and literary theory and with the visual arts.