On 27 and 28 July the Mariinsky Theatre will be staging Rodion Shchedrin’s opera The Lefthander, commissioned especially for the new stage of the Mariinsky Theatre and dedicated to maestro Valery Gergiev. The production, directed by Alexei Stepanyuk, brings the Stars of the White Nights festival to a close.
Shchedrin’s music occupies a special position in the theatre’s repertoire; here there have been productions of his operas Dead Souls and The Enchanted Wanderer and the ballets Anna Karenina and The Little Humpbacked Horse and there are regular performances of his symphony music.
In The Lefthander, the composer has once again turned to the works of his beloved author Nikolai Leskov. Following The Sealed Angel and The Enchanted Wanderer, The Lefthander will be Shchedrin’s third opera after a tale by Leskov. As the composer says, “Lefty is Nikolai Leskov’s most famous novella. In Russia everyone knows it. Lefty is incredibly rich material for an opera plot. The actual tale in the novella is a grotesque exaggeration. What is it? a Biblical parable, a farcical fairground myth or an epic tale? The characters are vivid, luscious and contrasting. There are the Russian Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I, the Winter Palace and the British Royal Court. It is a buffonade and a tragedy. Laughter through tears... And if you look somewhat deeper then you can plainly see the artistic contrast of two ways of life – the rational British and the irrational Russian.”
Valery Gergiev has stressed more than once that the premiere of The Lefthander is a key event of this year’s theatre season and the Stars of the White Nights festival: “This is a tremendous event for all Russian music. The opera is totally amazing – both in terms of its orchestral colours and in the precision of the characteristics of the soloists; it has been written for very powerful vocal and orchestral resources.”
The premiere of the stage version of the opera The Lefthander brings the Stars of the White Nights festival to a close.
The production team includes: Stage Director Alexei Stepanyuk, Set Designer Alexander Orlov, Assistant Set Designer Yuri Suchkov, Costume Designer Irina Cherednikova, Chorus Master Andrei Petrenko, Irina Soboleva (musical preparation), Choreographer Ilya Ustyantsev and Lighting Designer Alexander Sivaev. The premiere performances will be conducted by Valery Gergiev.
The roles are being rehearsed by: Andrei Popov, Stanislav Leontiev and Andrei Zorin (the Lefthander, a craftsman from Tula), Edward Tsanga, Alexander Morozov, Vitaly Yankovsky and Vladimir Felyauer (Ataman Platov), Vladimir Moroz, Sergei Romanov and Viktor Korotich (Alexander I, the Russian Tsar; Nicholas I, the Russian Tsar, brother of Alexander I), Yekaterina Sergeyeva, Maria Maksakova and Regina Rustamova (Princess Charlotte, daughter of King George III of Great Britain), Olga Pudova, Kristina Alieva and Natalia Andreyeva (the Flea), Edem Umerov, Andrei Spekhov, Grigor Werner and Vladimir Samsonov (an English Under-Skipper), Andrei Ilyushnikov, Alexander Timchenko and Mikhail Makarov (Count Kiselvrode), Yekaterina Goncharova, Zhanna Dombrovskaya and Olga Trifonova (First Speaking Woman), Yulia Matochkina, Kristina Kapustinskaya, Irina Shishkova and Varvara Solovyova (Second Speaking Woman), Marina Aleshonkova, Yekaterina Krapivina, Violetta Lukyanenko, Irina Shishkova and Kristina Kapustinskaya (English Brides of the Lefthander), Vladimir Babokin, Oleg Losev, Mikhail Latyshev, Vladimir Zhivopistsev, Alexander Timchenko and Dmitry Koleushko (Lords of the Treasury of His Majesty in London) and Alexander Gerasimov, Andrei Spekhov, Vitaly Yankovsky, Anton Perminov and Fyodor Kuznetsov (Special Courier in Britain with the Lefthander).
For representatives of the media and photographers: we are inviting recording teams to the dress rehearsal of the opera at 18:00 on 26 July. Prior to the rehearsal there will be a press meeting with the production team and the composer. Recording teams will be admitted via the main entrance of the Mariinsky-II from 17:00.
