| 24 January will see debuts in Igor Stravinsky’s opera Le Rossignol: soprano Irina Vasilieva will be performing the role of the Cook for the first time and mezzo-soprano Olga Savova will be appearing as Death. | |||||
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Le Rossignol was Igor Stravinsky’s first opera. The composer began to write it in 1908, soon after completing his studies under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (in Act I one can sense the stylistic influence of his teacher), and he completed the work in 1914, having already composed Pétrouchka and Le Sacre du printemps. The premiere took place during Diaghilev’s Saisons russes in Paris, while in Russia audiences first saw the opera at the Mariinsky Theatre in a production by Vsevolod Meyerhold in 1918. The opera’s plot is based on the magical fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen. The Emperor of China banishes a freedom-loving songbird from his lands, replacing it with an artificial nightingale presented to him by Japanese ambassadors. But when Death comes for the seemingly all-powerful Emperor, only the song of the true Nightingale is enough to save him. | ||||
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Scene from the opera Le Rossignol 
