The marathon of Sergei Prokofiev’s piano concerti, an evening in memory of Maya Plisetskaya and the premiere of a work by contemporary composer Olga Neuwirth have brought the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra and the Wiener Philharmoniker’s tour under the baton of Valery Gergiev to a triumphant close in New York.
On 24 February at a concert marking one hundred and twenty-five years since the birth of Sergei Prokofiev, the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev began the tour in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. One American critic commented on the significance of such events, and the pianists who performed the solos that evening received rave reviews. “Wednesday’s marathon survey of Prokofiev’s concertos (...) proved fascinating, in part because at least two of these works are hardly ever performed.” (The New York Times)
The marathon opened with George Li, the twenty-year-old winner of the 2nd prize at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition; he performed the First Concerto. “A pensive middle section had uncommon depth and warmth in this account, with the orchestra’s dusky strings and mellow brasses” (The New York Times). Alexander Toradze (Concerto No 2) “had the fearsome technical ability needed to traverse the pits and peaks of this sprawling odyssey, the piano providing terse commentary against the inventive and exuberant orchestral accompaniment.” (Superconductor)
Daniil Trifonov, according to the critic of The New York Times, was an ideal soloist for the Third Piano Concerto. The columnist for New York Classical Review noted that “There is an amazing fluidity in his playing, as he is able to roll one phrase seamlessly into the next; but he can summon an impish ferocity, too. In the finale every note seemed perfectly placed, even as the music spun towards a roaring finish.”
The Fourth Concerto, written by Prokofiev for the one-handed pianist Paul Wittgenstein, when performed by Sergei Redkin, received mixed reviews. Nevertheless, the recipient of the 3rd prize at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition enchanted the columnist of The New York Times with his “finesse and sensitivity. The whirling finale was capricious and charming.”
The final piece of the evening was the Fifth Concerto, performed by Sergei Babayan. “The most winning of the five movements is the second (...) which Babayan played with sly charm. The Larghetto featured the loveliest sound that Mariinsky was able to achieve all night, in a dreaming introduction over which the piano floated, lighter than air.” (New York Classical Review).
The four-day ballet programme, which opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 25 February, was dedicated to the memory of Maya Plisetskaya. On the first evening Mariinsky Theatre prima ballerinas performed roles that had been close to the heart of Maya Plisetskaya – Diana Vishneva appeared as Carmen and Ulyana Lopatkina danced Michel Fokine’s miniature The Dying Swan.
The Mariinsky Orchestra under maestro Gergiev also performed Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, which was accompanied by a video recording with Maya Plisetskaya in Maurice Béjart’s production. Despite the fact that the critic of The New York Times named Ulyana Lopatkina’s performance in The Dying Swan the highlight of the evening, he focussed greater attention on Boléro. “The film shows how unstoppably she fanned the Boléro flame, building it from bleak austerity to cruel delight. She epitomised freedom.”
The columnist of The Weekly Standard commented on all the dancers in the performances: “Even to the ballet novice, the Mariinsky Company’s technique is stunning, sweeping the viewer up in a whirl of music and motion.”
From 26 to 28 February Valery Gergiev held three concerts with the Wiener Philharmoniker at Carnegie Hall, presenting the introduction to the opera Khovanshchina and Pictures at an Exhibition by Musorgsky, highlights from the operas Götterdämmerung and Parsifal and the overture from the opera Der Fliegende Holländer by Richard Wagner, Claude Debussy’s La Mer, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Manfred symphony and the American premiere of Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth’s opus Masaot/Clocks without Hands, which is dedicated to the Wiener Philharmoniker.
The reviewer of the portal Cutting Edge also wrote of the first evening at Carnegie Hall: “The amplified synchronism made the orchestra’s performance doubly intriguing. The thunderous woodwinds and the magnificent brass provided two conditions vital for a performance to be electrifying. Add to that the famous warmth of the strings of the Wiener Philharmoniker and before you there is a dream team.”
The concert on 27 February began “with sunrise, in the gentle rising warmth of the prelude to Musorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina. (...) The performance was pictorial and lovely, the warmth of the music-making ablating the morning mist, until only a trace of gold lingered in the air.” Olga Neuwirth’s work, “a kaleidoscopic and abstract narrative, begins in similar fashion, with the suspended quiet of morning. (...) she has a sense of both wit and personal tenderness that communicates on a direct and intuitive level.” The orchestra performed “with great energy, and each section seemed to relish their chance to rise out of the overall textures. The final chord hung in the air, leaving an enchanting aftertaste.” (New York Classical Review).
The critic of the portal Concertonet.com, having attended the final evening on 28 February, noted the “consummate total control which Mr Gergiev had over his orchestra. (...) Throughout, Mr Gergiev was pulling at the orchestra, giving them the chance for huge climaxes, then reaching back for even more emotion until the end. (...) The warm, comforting and human sounds of the Vienna Philharmonic offered both purity and adulteration in two magical hours.”
The tours by the Mariinsky Orchestra and the Wiener Philharmoniker under Valery Gergiev continue in both North and South America. On 1 and 2 March the Wiener Philharmoniker will be performing for the first time ever in Naples (Florida), on 5 March in Bogotá (Columbia) and on 8 and 9 March in São Paulo (Brazil). On 3 and 4 March the Mariinsky Orchestra will appear in Mexico City (Mexico), on 6 and 7 March in Havana (Cuba) and on 11 and 12 March the orchestra will give its final tour concerts in Frutillar (Chile).
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