On 30 November at the historic Mariinsky Theatre soloists of the Academy of Young Opera Singers directed by Larisa Gergiev will present a premiere of Sergei Banevich's opera The Story of Kai and Gerda. Zaurbek Gugkaev will be conducting. Working on the production are Stage Director Alexei Stepanyuk, Production and Costume Designer Elena Orlova, Lighting Designer Yevgeny Ganzburg, Video Designer Viktoria Zlotnikova and Production Choreographer Ilya Ustyantsev.
The Story of Kai and Gerda based on motifs of a tale by Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most famous and visually successful operas by Sergei Banevich. The world premiere of the work took place at the Kirov Theatre (now the Mariinsky) on 24 December 1980. At the time, Yuri Alexandrov's production suited the tastes of St Petersburg audiences, and for more than two decades The Story of Kai and Gerda proved to be a great success at the theatre. The opera has also been staged in Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Minsk, Kiev, Vladikavkaz and Pskov, and since 2009 it has been performed at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre and, since 2014, at the Bolshoi Theatre.
The musical material of the opera The Story of Kai and Gerda has been subjected to several amendments and today it returns to the Mariinsky Theatre in a revived version. Sergei Banevich considers that the development of society as a whole and theatre audiences in particular should be reflected in the music and production decisions. "Today parents place the accent differently on the tale about the monstrous mirror which shatters into thousands of pieces and threatens the children. When thinking about Kai, I also think about those teenagers today, with shards of 'the mirror of evil' in their hearts, whodo not know what love is, who do not know the value of life, who are ruthless and merciless. What a chasm between the parents and such a child! And the selfsacrificing love of such a loving person as Gerda is required in order for the teenager to find himself," the composer has said.
Production Director Alexei Stepanyuk recalls how, when first starting rehearsals of the opera, "First of all, I said to the performers before the first rehearsal, you have to read Andersen's story very carefully. And to be able, like he, having become an adult to see – as if for the first time – the things that children see, to see the magical in the everyday."
| user_name | | Exit |
