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At 4pm on 16 June maestro Gergiev will be conducting the final part of Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen at the new stage of the Mariinsky Theatre (Mariinsky-II). The performance is to be a musical tribute to Yevgeny Mravinsky who was born one hundred and ten years ago this June.
Yevgeny Alexandrovich Mravinsky’s artistic career was closely linked with the Mariinsky Theatre. His aunt, the famous soprano Yevgenia Mravinskaya in whose honour the conductor-to-be was named, was – under the stage name of “Mravina” – a leading soloist with the Mariinsky Opera from 1886−1900. The young Yevgeny’s appearance among the theatre’s extras was thus an entirely natural step – he even abandoned his studies at the St Petersburg University in order to do this. In 1932 Mravinsky made his debut at the theatre as a conductor and over the next six years, right up to his providential victory at the I All-Union Conducting Competition, he supervised the musical direction of a series of productions in the theatre’s repertoire.
Valery Gergiev’s choice for the dedication is not an object of chance: of all of the music by Wagner, one of Mravinsky’s favourite composers, the scene of Siegfried’s death (Funeral March) from the opera Götterdämmerung has always been the loftiest and the most heartfelt. Like the heroes of ancient myths, when great people depart into the past they always remain alive in our memories.
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