On 23 August the Mariinsky Theatre will see the return of a legendary production – David Freeman's staging of Sergei Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel. The images of the characters of this mystical opus are to be brought to life by stars of the Mariinsky Opera – Elena Stikhina will be appearing as Renata alongside Yevgeny Nikitin as Ruprecht. Valery Gergiev will be conducting.
The Mariinsky Theatre was the first company to stage The Fiery Angel in St Petersburg. In 1991 this co-production with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, heralded the dawn of a new era which also saw Leningrad renamed St Petersburg and the Kirov Theatre renamed the Mariinsky. Stage Director David Freeman created a visually bleak production with deceptively few layers, proposing a capacious solution to a complex task – the visualisation of the irrational and the materialisation of demons. In his production, the plot is focussed on a small island in the centre of the stage with conditional indicators of the surroundings, and this is intensified by the white creatures – demons devouring Renata's soul – sitting around the blackened walls and twisting and coiling in plastique relief.
The production, in keeping with and in some ways ahead of its time, was to prove a triumph first in Russia and later in Japan and the USA and it marked a new stage in the creative life of the Mariinsky Theatre. Since then, each time that it has returned to the repertoire, it has attracted both dedicated admirers and harsh critics, though it never leaves the audience indifferent. Eight years since the last performance, The Fiery Angel is once again ready to amaze St Petersburg's music-lovers.
At the Mariinsky II the production may also be seen on 24 August, while on 28 August Prokofiev's opera will be performed for the first time in concert for the audience at the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre under the baton of Valery Gergiev as part of the V International Far East Festival Mariinsky (Vladivostok).
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