Dostoevsky Melodies
Being insulted and injured doesn't stop the characters of "Vladimir Square" from bursting into song. By Anna Malpas for The Moscow Times

The hero doesn't get the girl, several characters are actually dead, and the chorus repeats the line, "There are no reasons for love." A new musical based on a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky probably won't appeal to fans of "The Sound of Music," but its creators see Russia's gloomiest author as ripe for a tuneful revival.

Titled "Vladimir Square," the musical now playing at the Maly Theater takes its plot from an early Dostoevsky novel called "The Insulted and the Injured." The book tells the story of a four-way love affair involving a young aristocrat, his sweetheart, an heiress and a poor writer called Vanya. Then there's a subplot about a wronged orphan, whose deceased relatives appear in some scenes.

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