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Cultural Life 
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RT Guest: Valery Gergiev
February 8, 2009, 9:46

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Outstanding conductor Valery Gergiev is known to music lovers across the globe, but until recently few people were aware that he is a native Ossetian. Following last summer's conflict, he gave a memorable and emotional concert in the ravaged South Ossetian capital, Tskhinval.

But not everyone was happy. After the concert he faced a flurry of criticism in the west for ‘supporting Russia's aggression’. But the conductor is convinced he did the right thing.

Valery Gergiev has been chief conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater since 1988. He has been responsible not only for many outstanding performances, but also for an ambitious reconstruction of the 300-year-old building - including the creation of a new 11,000-seat Mariinsky Hall. Besides his key role at the world-famous Russian theatre, Gergiev is also principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

He is known for his passionate style, which some call abrasive.

Gergiev believes that if politicians learnt to listen to each other – like actors and singers do on stage - they could be much more effective and avoid wars.

Despite his busy working schedule, he still finds time for his three children.

RT caught up with him in London, during rehearsals with the London Symphony Orchestra for Prokoviev’s “Romeo and Juliette”.

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10 фев 2009, 03:05
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Valery Gergiev interview for the Mariinsky Ring cycle at Covent Garden

Valery Gergiev discusses his ambitious and controversial production of Wagner's Ring cycle at Covent Garden.

By Robert Turnbull
Published: 4:42PM BST 21 Jul 2009

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What takes at least nine days anywhere else in the world, the Mariinsky Theatre delivers in four. Under its inexhaustible artistic director, Valery Gergiev, St Petersburg’s legendary opera company performs all four operas of Wagner’s Das Ring des Nibelungen over consecutive evenings.

The total-immersion experience will be offered to London audiences next week when promoter Lilian Hochhauser brings this controversial marathon to the Royal Opera House, along with five of the Mariinsky’s ballets.

The first complete, original-language staging of the Ring to have been mounted in Russia since the First World War, it achieves non-stop momentum by casting the cycle entirely from soloists from the company’s resident ensemble. Even at Wagner’s home in Bayreuth, the singers are given nights off to rest their voices between episodes. In London each of the principal roles of Brunnhilde , Siegfried and Wotan will be shared between two singers. The Mariinsky is probably the only company in the world able to do this.

First seen complete in 2003, the staging has already travelled to Japan, the US and Europe. George Tsypin’s designs depart from the Norse sagas that inspired Wagner, to borrow from the mythology of the Caucasus region. Defining the look of this production is a single set dominated by four 36ft giants, the primordial gods of the Caucasian state of Ossetia, from where Gergiev hails.

But while this “Russian” production played to packed houses, it was mauled by critics. At the Cardiff Millenium Centre in 2007, the Independent’s Stephen Walsh called it “lifeless” and reported “plentiful signs of wear and tear”. Others complained of unidiomatic German singing. At its appearance at the Lincoln Centre Festival the same year, the New York Times mocked Tatiana Noginova’s costumes as “cheap and tacky” and wondered if the “rubbery battle shields” had been found “in the Halloween costume bin at Wal-Mart”.

Gergiev said the theatre was the problem in Cardiff. “The stage was too small for the set we had created, so we knew it would be a gamble,” he said to me when I managed to get time with him last month. “But I can’t accept the comments about the German. We hired the best language coaches from Bayreuth and Munich. Colleagues such as Barenboim and Eschenbach working in German houses have chosen singers from our casts.”

On the face of it, Gergiev should be applauded for applying a Slavic brush to this profoundly Teutonic canvas. In recent years, productions dealing with, or rather coping with, the past 150 years of German history, from the birth of industry to the rise of Nazism, have monopolised the staging of this musical Everest. Germans even have a word for this effort to cope with their past: Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung.

But the inescapable fact is that this Ring was assembled haphazardly. The production has not only changed radically but suffered a series of firings and defections. What London will see is a revamped version with a fifth director, the young Briton Alexander Zeldin, as well as brand-new video projections.

Most notable of the defections was that of the German director Johannes Schaaf, who quit after Das Rheingold in 2000 leaving his designer Gottfried Pilz to stage the second instalment, Die Walküre, a year later. Gergiev wasn’t satisfied, grumbling recently that their approach was “exactly the sort of thing we were trying to avoid. I was naïve to think it could have been otherwise: German elements are in their genes.”

Starting again from scratch, Gergiev then decided he wanted something “iconic but simple, using primitive images that conveyed a sense of timelessness”, a repudiation of “the typical Stuttgart production with Wotan and the Gods as men in business suits with dark glasses”.

He brought in Tsypin in 2002, and the two began assembling a set whose imagery is based on research into the Nart gods of Caucasian mythology. “I was brought up with these stories,’ says Gergiev, “but I never realised how close they are to the Nibelungen sagas. There are birds and dragons in both legends and striking similarities between the lead characters.”

Unveiled last month at the White Nights Festival, which Gergiev directs, the revamped Ring also introduces the work of Sven Ortel, a video artist who has worked with Robert Lepage and Simon McBurney. Gergiev discovered the potential of video through the American Bill Viola’s Tristan und Isolde, which he conducted in Paris in 2005. “Like Viola’s, Ortel’s work makes possible some wonderful imaginative fantasy,” says Gergiev, “and helps diminish the dominating impact of the four giants.”

But to find a director prepared to take on the fait-accompli of a set proved more problematic. In 2002 Gergiev hired the Moscow Drama Theatre’s Vladimir Mirzoev, who wanted to cut the work, and “never really accepted the dominance of the set”, according to Gergiev. The Israeli-Russian Julia Pevsner was hurriedly drafted in to “block” the production for White Nights 2003, but by the time it reached Cardiff, it was Susanna Tsiriouk who was credited with directing the cycle.

Gergiev’s suspicion of abstract interpretations of opera isn’t surprising, given that his company still deploys old-fashioned painted backdrops with Kremlin towers and Caspar David Freidrich moonlights. The Russians have been understandably slow to adapt to the new power in opera: the modern stage director.

In Alexander Zeldin, however, Gergiev has found someone who is not only willing to work around the existing visual motifs but who shares something of the maestro’s scepticism on modern operatic trends. “In German Regietheater, the director is king. I don’t necessarily buy that approach, says Zeldin.

Born to Australian, Russian-Jewish parents, Zeldin, 24, was educated at Oxford and influenced by Peter Brook and Robert Lepage, but he has looked east for theatrical inspiration. In 2005 he established the Etha Theatre Company and toured Egypt with an Asian-influenced production of Calderon’s The Constant Prince that was seen at London’s Arcola Theatre.

Joining what he calls “the Mariinsky family” in 2007, Zeldin directed the Russian premiere of Thomas Adès’s opera Powder Her Face with a peppercorn budget and only warehouse props. The results so impressed Gergiev that he immediately engaged him to stage a double bill of Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi the following year.

For this Ring, Zeldin insists he is not an object of Gergiev’s will: “I was brought in to give the production focus and drama. The story wasn’t being told, so it was a question looking at the visual imagery and thinking, where do we go with this.”

Zeldin shares Tsypin’s fascination with the convergence of mythologies. “Wotan bears a striking resemblance to the Nart god Warzameg, who is betrayed as both leader of the Nart gods and as their most fallible man. The character of Soseruquo is an equivalent of Wagner’s Siegfried, a fearless hero brought up secluded from the real world.”

Zeldin and Tsypin want to give the production a modern twist in counterpoint to the old myths – an ambition they wish to realise more through visual devices than by heavyweight conceptualisation. “Wagner was writing during the Industrial Revolution, when man first attempted to control circumstances that exist beyond nature,” says Zeldin. “Today science is driving us further still: in an era of DNA and cloning we are inventing things that are beyond our comprehension, so the very business of being human is under threat. The Rheingold is the very fabric of the natural world, not just a piece of gold,” Zeldin elaborates. “It’s fleshy, tissue-like fabric, that starts as a beautiful living organism in the water. The four giants that dominate the set become the voodoo dolls of our own humanity.”

Many at the Mariinsky consider London their home from home. Gergiev’s first presentations of Russian opera and ballet were considered marvels of decorative stagecraft; audiences were astonished by the outpouring of unknown vocal talent. There have been hiccups since then – a Verdi season at Covent Garden that failed to get uniformly strong reviews, and a Shostakovich cycle at the Coliseum which even Gergiev admits was “a financial disaster”.

Now they are back, and all eyes are on their controversial Ring cycle. Tickets are selling well.

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22 июл 2009, 00:00
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Bolshoi Blues: Trouble at the Legendary Theater

By John Wendle / Moscow Monday, Jul. 20, 2009

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The rose-and-white-columned façade of Russia's famed Bolshoi Theater has stood shrouded in construction curtains and spiky scaffolding for four years — and it looks to stay that way longer still, as the sudden resignation of the theater's musical director has pitched the future of the Bolshoi and its multimillion-dollar renovation into disarray.

Alexander Vedernikov's dramatic exit was the climax of a battle between the director and the theater's management over the revamp of the Bolshoi, a nearly 200-year-old icon of Russian culture just a five-minute walk from the Kremlin. "I resigned because of a disagreement with the administrators over their policies on some major development issues and over the artistic future of the theater," Vedernikov told TIME in a phone interview from his hotel in Milan, from which he is leading the Bolshoi on a summer tour of Italy — potentially his last for the theater. "We disagreed because I believe the primary logic in making decisions for the theater should be artistic, but now the primary logic is bureaucratic — and this has nothing in common with artistic issues." (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)

After decades of neglect, the Bolshoi had deteriorated into a firetrap, and by the time the renovation started, more than 70% of the theater's foundation had been eroded by an underground stream. Worse still — at least, for Russia's music lovers — damage caused by construction of the Moscow Metro in the 1930s and a bomb hit during World War II had forced the theater to replace the wood panels on the walls with concrete in the 1950s, ruining the acoustics. Eventually, with support from UNESCO, the government decided to fund a $700 million reconstruction project, which was started in 2005. Although originally scheduled to be completed in 2009, Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeyev said in February that the building would not be ready until the middle of 2011. (See pictures of UNESCO's new Natural Wonders of the World.)

Observers say that during the course of the restoration, the theater's administration has been focusing on the reconstruction of the building and taking little interest in the artistic aspects of the revamped theater. "There is a tendency to think of the Bolshoi as a building — to think of it as a brand," says Raymond Stults, a critic who has written about the Moscow opera scene for 15 years. "After a successful tour in Paris a few years ago, one of their ballerinas said to me, 'Finally the management realizes that it's not about them and it's not about the building — it's about us.' But I don't know how long that feeling was maintained."

German firm Müller-BBM, a leader in its field, had been hired at the start of the reconstruction to bring the theater's acoustics back to their former glory. However, in the past few months, as the financial crisis has torn through Russia, Vedernikov learned that the firm's contract had not been renewed. A Russian institute without Müller-BBM's expertise has been brought in to carry out the work instead — a move to which the music director is vigorously opposed. "When I hear [Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov say] that it is very important to open the theater in 2011, I always think that it is not so important when the theater opens because the reconstruction is very difficult and complex," says Vedernikov. "Instead, in this situation, the quality of what is going to be done is far more important ... I have nothing to expect but a disastrous result." (See pictures of President Obama in Russia.)

The theater has said it does not plan to replace the music director anytime soon. "His decision didn't come as a surprise," says Katerina Novikova, the Bolshoi's chief spokeswoman, echoing statements made by the theater's general director, Anatoly Iksanov, to the Russian press. "The Bolshoi management feels that the years that Mr. Vedernikov was with the company were fruitful, but maybe it is time [to move on]." Five prominent Russian conductors will now pass through the music director's role in Vedernikov's place, though the Bolshoi says he is welcome to come in as a guest conductor whenever he wants. (Read "Retaking Center Stage.")

But the dramatic rupture on July 20 was about more than technical and financial issues. Also at play were different management styles and views on what direction the Bolshoi should take next — a clash that is possible only in a vibrant creative environment that encourages varying philosophies, something that's rare in the world of Russian theater, with its lingering Soviet ethos. "The Bolshoi Theater actually operates quite well as a theatrical organism. It is not like some other theaters where one man decides everything," says spokeswoman Novikova, making a reference to the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, which has grown to outshine the Bolshoi under the strong — some say autocratic — hand of artistic director and conductor Valery Gergiev. "In the Bolshoi, we have a structure where everyone has their own responsibility and makes their own decisions." (See pictures of the Bolshevik October Revolution.)

That structure has helped create some world-class performances. But Vedernikov's resignation will leave a gaping hole in the theater's leadership, which can only worsen the Bolshoi's physical and artistic predicament.

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22 июл 2009, 00:35
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fund a $700 million reconstruction project, which was started in 2005. Although originally scheduled to be completed in 2009, Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeyev said in February that the building would not be


Smotrja chto i kak schitat* ,no wes* bjudzet rekonstrukzii bolsche 1 mlrd $ ,mozet blize k 1.5 mlrd $


22 июл 2009, 00:39
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From Toronto with love, a new theatre for St. Petersburg

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Canadian architectural firm Diamond + Schmitt has signed on to build Russia's first major opera house since the time of the czars, in the coveted $452-million revamp project for the Mariinsky Theatre

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29 июл 2009, 17:49
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Design Selected for Construction of Mariinsky's 2nd Stage

By Galina Stolyarova. Staff Writer

The St. Petersburg-based Bureau of High-Rise and Underground Construction, or KB ViPS, has been selected as the local partner for the Canadian firm Diamond and Schmitt Architects in building Mariinsky II, the second stage for the Mariinsky Theater (see related story, page 5).

The new building, with a planned capacity of 2,000 seats, will add to the Mariinsky’s landmark historic premises and its 2007 state-of-the-art concert hall designed by the French architect Xavier Fabre.

KB ViPS was selected by a specially created state commission during an open competition. The commission included, among others, the Mariinsky’s artistic director Valery Gergiev, Russia’s culture minister Alexander Avdeyev and St. Petersburg’s chief architect Yury Mityurev.

Mariinsky II is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2011 at an estimated cost of $452 million.

“I am extremely pleased to see that we have finally moved on from the state of uncertainty to a clear and transparent situation, in which the costs and the deadlines have been set,” said Gergiev. “We are a world-class theater and really cannot continue to postpone the opening of the second stage year after year. The opening has to be celebrated on a very high artistic level, perhaps with a marathon of star performances. This kind of event requires two or three years of preparations, so careful planning is essential.”

The Mariinsky Theater gives nearly 600 performances a year, including almost 400 shows at home. The company boasts a vast opera and ballet repertoire, performing up to 150 titles annually.

“I am glad that we have moved on from considering gorgeous-looking or extravagant projects that turn out to be unrealizable in reality,” Gergiev said. “The Canadian design will give us no trouble.”

The Mariinsky II saga has been dragging on since 2003, when the prominent French architect Dominique Perrault won a prestigious international competition to design the building.

In 2004, after painstaking bureaucratic scrutiny, the Culture Ministry finally signed a contract with the French architect to use his design for a state-of-the-art building. Despite the imminent deadlines, the government appeared to be in no rush to get things started.

Some insiders say this embarrassing procrastination was due to a lack of money. Since the competition, the projected cost of the building had increased from $100 million to $244 million. Perrault’s design was a non-symmetrical, many-sided golden metal structure built around a new theater building. The architect said that he saw himself as a fashion designer, and his design was meant to wrap the black marble facade of the building inside a light, transparent golden tunic. The new building was intended to exist in harmony with the existing theater building, which was built in 1860 to a design by the Italian Albert Cavos. A bridge over the Kryukov Canal was to connect the two buildings.

Many St. Petersburgers — including many members of the city’s cultural elite — never accepted the French project, branding the design too revolutionary or lacking taste. One of the least offensive nicknames applied to the new building was “the golden potato.” Critics said Perrault’s design was too elaborate and out of keeping with the classical lines of the neighborhood.

In November 2008, the Russian government officially announced that the Perrault project had been rejected.

“Dominique Perrault is a renowned architect but he has no experience in designing theaters; and I am against anyone using an internationally acclaimed company like ours as a training ground,” Gergiev said. “I came to the Mariinsky symphony orchestra an accomplished conductor, and had my lessons, training and practice elsewhere.”

Mityurev said a series of minor amendments will have to be made to the new project but no serious alterations need to be made.

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03 сен 2009, 01:51
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A new cruise for music lovers

16 September 2009

If you have a passion for orchestral music and would like to experience one of the world’s premier orchestras in some of the most stunning settings in Europe, then look no further.

German specialist tour operator, Dertour has launched a new ‘Sea & Music’ cruise of the Baltic Sea for 2010 featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

The cruise will take place between the 7th and 17th of July 2010 and its itinerary includes Kiel, Tallinn, St Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, and Kaliningrad. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s conductors will be Valery Gergiev and Christian Thielemann, and will feature soloist performances by pianist Rudolf Buchbinder and soprano Ildiko Raimondi.

Highlights will include three concerts – one in St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre; the second in Helsinki’s Finlandia Hall and the final one in Kaliningrad, which was the birthplace of the German composer and conductor, Otto Nicolai, who founded the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Classical music’s rising star, Christian Thieleman will be conducting works by Nicolai and Beethoven to mark this occasion.

Prices start from £2,679 per person to include onboard accommodation on the four-star ‘Mein Schiff’ (onboard facilities include swimming pool, luxury spa and fitness centre, shops, casino etc). The price includes return flights with British Airways from Heathrow to Hamburg, transfer to/from ship, ten nights full board accommodation, all gratuities, port taxes and visas for onshore visits to concerts, or as part of an organised excursion. Based on two people sharing.

Included musical highlights are as follows: three onshore gala concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in St Petersburg, Helsinki and Kaliningrad; two additional onshore concerts in Tallinn and Stockholm; four chamber music concerts by ensembles of the VPO on board; autograph session; onboard lecture by Prof. Dr Clemens Hellsberg and transport to and from all onshore concerts plus access to occasional rehearsals of the full Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra onboard.

For more information or to book go to dertour.co.uk

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18 сен 2009, 00:35
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              The Metropolitan Opera

              April 3 2009

              Giuseppe Verdi's
              A I D A

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              Ramfis: Carlo Colombara
              Radames: Salvatore Licitra
              Amneris: Dolora Zajick
              Aida: Hui He
              The King: Stefan Kocan
              Amonasro: Carlo Guelfi

              Conductor: Marco Armiliato

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Lincoln Center, NYC, 2010

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Dante Park across from the Lincoln Center, NYC, 2010


Последний раз редактировалось Octavia 07 апр 2010, 00:57, всего редактировалось 1 раз.



06 апр 2010, 17:58
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Giuseppe Verdi's

....A I D A

Premiere: Cairo Opera House, 1871

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From Egyptian collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

playbill, April 2010, The Met писал(а):
This grandest of grand operas features an epic backdrop for what is in essence an intimate love story. Set in ancient Egypt and packed with magnificent choruses, complex ensembles, and elaborate ballets, Aida never loses sight of its three protagonists: Amneris, the proud daughter of the pharaoh; her slave, Aida, who is the princess of the rival kingdom of Ethiopia; and Radames the Egyptian warrior they both love.

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From Egyptian collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art


07 апр 2010, 00:18
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