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Rusanova: Valery Abisalovich, how is this unique tour going, these five concerts? As I understand this is an unprecedented event for Carnegie Hall for a non-American orchestra. Gergiev: The tour is proving a great success. Just yesterday we gave two concerts at Carnegie Hall. We performed Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s First and Sixth Symphonies. I was very satisfied with these concerts. The series of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies is something that appeared in my life quite recently. I have performed series of symphonies by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Mahler throughout the world on numerous occasions. Curiously the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra has very rarely performed a series of the Tchaikovsky symphonies. Quite often we have performed the Fifth and Sixth – and the Fourth – as well as the early symphonies at times. But we are performing them as part of one series in New York over five days for the first time. We have already performed the series in Beijing – it was just five days ago that we performed there. And naturally we also want to perform the series in Moscow as well. That will probably be quite soon. But I would also like to speak about the exceptional atmosphere at these concerts. The acoustics are amazing, the hall filled and the audience a delight to play for. They gave us a very warm reception. And at the opening of the hall the day before yesterday we played Rimsky-Korsakov’s Schéhérazade and Andante Cantabile for an encore. It went really well. And we opened the season at Carnegie Hall with Dmitry Shostakovich’s Festive Overture. For the encore we played the polonaise from the opera Eugene Onegin to bring the focus back to the main reason for our being here. One hundred and twenty years ago Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky opened Carnegie Hall – back then it was a completely new venue and it would become the principal concert hall in the USA, one of the greatest, most significant and prestigious venues in the world. And naturally we, with a certain sense of pride in Russian music and Pyotr Tchaikovsky and gratitude for him, felt a degree of anxiety, understanding the significance of the event we were to undertake. The hall was packed. And this concert, the opening of the season, is always a major event here in New York. This is the second time the Mariinsky Theatre has opened the season here at Carnegie Hall. We first did it in 2003. Back then it was in connection with celebrations marking the tercentenary of St Petersburg. Back then we represented St Petersburg on every continent during its anniversary year. And we were very active in doing so. In Russia, too, if you remember, we had a festival. All of the world’s great opera and ballet companies and orchestras came to visit us. I remember that marathon lasted three months. It was a major arts festival. A debut by Daniil Trifonov Gergiev: But today we are here in America and we are performing a series of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies. I also invited Daniil Trifonov, recipient of the Grand Prix and the Gold Medal at the recent Tchaikovsky Competition. He will be performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto in New York. That will be his orchestral debut in New York, at Carnegie Hall. Everyone has been eagerly anticipating this appearance. And I really hope that Daniil will stun the audience. He is, of course, a very talented man and a great future lies before him. I also hope that now he makes a great effort to develop his potential and his repertoire. Tchaikovsky’s Concerto brings back memories of the competition in Moscow Gergiev: The performance of the Tchaikovsky Concerto at Carnegie Hall will also bring back memories of the recent competition in Moscow. The pianists competed in an unusually tense and emotional atmosphere – I would say it was quite intense in terms of competitiveness. And Daniil will be representing this competition as its winner. And I think that’s also very important for us, because the international reputation of the Tchaikovsky Competition will not, perhaps, merely continue to grow, and it will become superfluous to speak of the significance of this competition. Everyone knows that. But to an extent this concert will be a summing up of the results. Most who are coming to the concert, I think, will have heard that it was a major forum for music and that it was run along new guidelines. The reputation of the competition remains very high. It has been commented on by many Western publications. Recently in London we opened the London Symphony Orchestra’s season. There were Daniil Trifonov, Narek Hakhnazaryan and the wonderful Korean soprano Sun Young Seo who took the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition. These young musicians all got rave reviews. And that was just great to see. Speaking with Olga Rusanova For the full text of the interview in Russian go to the Vesti FM website. |
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