Anton Čechov, Il giardino dei ciliegi

Abstract

Anton Chekhov wrote his last play, Višnëvyj sad (The Cherry Orchard), at the dawn of the twentieth century. From Yalta on 22 April 1901 he sent a letter to the Moscow Art Theater’s actress Olga Knipper, whom he would marry within a year, telling her that he was tempted to write a four acts vaudeville or a comedy, and would have been able to send it to the Art Theatre «not before the end of 1903». So it was. And so it takes shape for the scene The Cherry Orchard; Chekhov managed to create «a spider's web» with which he captured the attention and the mind of the spectators of the first opening of the play in 1904, as well as of every subsequent re-run on all the stages of the world. The Cherry Orchard is one of the most significant monuments of the history of theatre, a twentieth century’s emblematic tale.