Valery Gergiev will be conducting the Mariinsky Opera in performances of the operas Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in Astana
Artistes of the Mariinsky Opera and Orchestra will be performing under the baton of maestro Gergiev in Kazakhstan as part of the I International Music Festival The Silk Road. The Kazakh State Opera and Ballet Theatre Astana Opera will be hosting the Mariinsky Theatre’s performances of the first two parts of Richard Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, staged on a concept by Valery Gergiev and George Tsypin. On 3 October there will be a performance of Das Rheingold, the preliminary evening of Wagner’s tetralogy. The vocal roles will be performed by leading soloists of the Mariinsky Opera and the Mariinsky Academy of Young Opera Singers, many of whom have already won acclaim in the Wagnerian repertoire at the world’s greatest musical theatres, among them Nikolai Putilin (Alberich), Mikhail Vekua (Loge), Andrei Popov (Mime), Mikhail Petrenko (Fafner), Edward Tsanga (Fasolt), Zlata Bulycheva (Erda), Anastasia Kalagina (Freia), Yevgeny Ulanov (Donner), Alexander Timchenko (Froh), Zhanna Dombrovskaya (Woglinde), Yulia Matochkina (Wellgunde) and Ekaterina Sergeyeva (Flosshilde). The role of Wotan will be sung by internationally renowned bass-baritone Willard White and that of Fricka by mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova.
On 4 October the Astana Opera will host a performance of the opera Die Walküre. The vocal roles will be performed by Vladimir Feliauer (Wotan), Ekaterina Gubanova (Fricka), Avgust Amonov (Siegmund), Mlada Khudoley (Sieglinde), Mikhail Petrenko (Hunding) and Olga Savova (Brünnhilde) as well as Zhanna Dombrovskaya, Irina Vasilieva, Regina Rustamova, Yekaterina Krapivina, Tatiana Kravtsova, Ekaterina Sergeyeva, Elena Vitman and Yulia Matochkina (Valkyries).
The tour to Astana marks the next stage in collaboration between the Mariinsky Theatre and the new Kazakh theatre which was inaugurated in June 2013. The series of celebrations in October last year dedicated to the opening of the new theatre began with a premiere of a new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Attila conducted by Valery Gergiev. In March this year the gave its first tour outside Kazakhstan – in St Petersburg at the Mariinsky-II it presented the operas Attila and Birzhan and Sara (a national opera written by the Kazakh composer Mukan Tulebayev).
The production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, staged at the Mariinsky Theatre in 2003, is unique: it was the first German-language production of Wagner’s tetralogy at any Russian musical theatre. In sharp contrast to dozens of European productions of the Ring in which the mythological plot is made contemporary and brought up to date, the Mariinsky Theatre’s tetralogy is markedly archaic in style and makes references to humanity’s ancient memories, including symbols of various ancient civilisations. Thanks to this production, the Mariinsky Theatre earned its reputation as a “true house of Wagner” (the theatre has a repertoire of Wagnerian music unprecedented in Russia, featuring productions of Der Fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal in addition to Der Ring des Nibelungen).
The European premiere of the Mariinsky Theatre’s Ring (Baden-Baden, 2004) was received by the German media as a truly historic event in the history of music. In addition to performances in Germany, the Mariinsky Opera has performed Wagner’s tetralogy on tour in Russia (Moscow), South Korea, Japan, the USA, Great Britain, Spain and Slovenia. Now the Ring’s touring geography will expand to include Astana. The Mariinsky label has produced a complete recording of Wagner’s tetralogy. The already released Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, thanks to the magnificent cast of soloists and the “magnificent playing by the Mariinsky Orchestra” (BBC Radio 3 CD Review) under Valery Gergiev, immediately won broad acclaim from the public and the critics. The first release of the tetralogy – the opera Die Walküre – received a Diapason d’Or, an Opera Diamond award and five stars from Audiophile Audition magazine, as well as one of classical music’s most prestigious prizes, the ECHO Klassik, as “Best Opera Recording of the Year”. The Mariinsky Opera’s Das Rheingold was awarded the Choc de l’année prize by France’s respected magazine Classica.
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