In a conversation with musicologist Yaroslav Timofeev, composer Vladimir Martynov discusses his opera “Vita Nuova,” created for Mariinsky Theatre at the beginning of 2000s and first performed in a full concert version at Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (Moscow) on March 29, 2026. Martynov reflects on the concept of this “opera about opera” as a death mask for the genre, explains the choice of Dante’s poem “La Vita Nuova” and the shamanic metaphor for the poet’s illness. The composer reveals the score’s structural principles (triadic nature, the number nine as Beatrice’s code), its linguistic dramaturgy (Italian, English, Latin), and its stylistic echoes of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Gustav Mahler, and Philip Glass. The conversation also touches on the autobiographical background of the opera, the theme of the artist’s initiation through unhappy love, and Martynov’s reflections on his own eightieth birthday—old age, regression (Rückbildung), and the fate of contemporary musical communication.