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Chronograph > Premiere of the play "The Cherry Orchard" at Moscow Art Theatre
17 January 1904
Premiere of the play "The Cherry Orchard" at Moscow Art Theatre
The premiere matched up with the name day of the playwright, who died that year. After the third act, Chekhov accepted congratulations and gifts, standing on the stage, according to eyewitnesses, "deathly pale and thin." The production was attended by the best artists of the theatre. Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vasily Kachalov, Olga Knipper, Ivan Moskvin. But the creator of the famous “system” wrote about the premiere: “The performance itself was only average success, and we condemned ourselves for not being able to show the most important, beautiful and valuable in the play the first time. Anton Pavlovich died, before witnessing the true success of his last fragrant work." Chekhov himself, on the day after the performance, wrote to his friend Ivan Scheglov: “Yesterday my play was performed, therefore my mood was unimportant.”