Putin Attends Mariinsky’s 225th Anniversary Event
By Irina Titova. Staff Writer
The celebrated opera diva Anna Netrebko, of St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, received Russia’s highest state cultural honor in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
President Vladimir Putin presented Netrebko and three other artists at the theater with the title People’s National Artist as the Mariinsky celebrated its 225th anniversary with a gala concert.
Putin, who attended the concert, also announced that the state would increase its funding of what he called “the cradle of Russian musical art” to up to 1.5 billion rubles ($62 million) a year. Putin said that now the Mariinsky would have a budget equal to that of Moscow’s Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater.
In a speech, Putin said that the Mariinsky “brings fame to its country” and “generously gives its art to the audiences around the world.”
“Today, the state treats its spiritual properties, especially the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theaters, very responsibly. Therefore we’ll increase the budget of the theater,” Putin said.
He said the state would also allocate 3 billion rubles ($124 million) for the historic theater’s reconstruction in 2010-2012.
Mariinsky Theater director Valery Gergiev thanked the president emotionally for the support.
“We now live in a country that goes forward with confidence. And special thanks to the president for the opportunities our theater now has,” he said.
Along with Netrebko, the title of National Artist was given to opera soloists Vasily Gerelo and Vladimir Galuzin, and ballerina Yulia Makhalina.
A string of other honors were handed out to artists, chorographers and administrators at the theater, whose opera and ballet companies are still known abroad by its Soviet-era name, the Kirov.
At the concert, Netrebko sang the song of Giuditta from the operetta of the same name. The superstar soprano, 36, moved around the stage so quickly that some of her fans — still excited about the announcement that Netrebko made two weeks ago that she is pregnant — became concerned.
Netrebko sang in the second part of the concert after she received her honor from Putin. Before that she said it would be hard for her to sing in “such excited mood.”
Mariinsky ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina performed a piece from “Raymonda.”
Also, Leonid Sarafanov and Alina Somova danced the pas de deux from the ballet “Le Corsaire.”
The Mariinsky Theater is one of the oldest theaters in Russia and counts among its alumni ballet dancers such as Anna Pavlova, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Each year the theater stages up to 12 premiers and undertakes tours around the world.
