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Wagner @ White Nights
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We continue exploring Wagner’s legacy at
the Stars of the White Nights
music festival. Performances of Wagner’s works
have already become an integral part of the previous
festival years. We are proud to have most of
Wagner’s operas in the Mariinsky repertoire. The
festival provides us with a special occasion
to demonstrate our best artistic achievments to date and gives
a chance to perform works of an incredible musical
importance featuring an exceptional range of stars
from our company as well as international guest
artists. This year we are once again lucky to welcome
back René Pape, a prominent German
bass-baritone. This artist is absolutely fluent in a
wide range of repertoire including German, Russian and
Italian works, however, one can clearly see how much
he enjoys singing in Wagner’s operas, being so
much passionate about the works. A few recent
appearances of René Pape at the
Mariinsky include his remarkable singing and acting in
such operas as Tristan und Isolde (King
Marke, June 2008) and Parsifal
(Amfortas, June 2005, June 2009). During
this year festival he will join us once again in
Wagner’s operas as King Marke
in Tristan und Isolde
(on Monday 7 June) and Wotan
in Das Rheingold
(on Wednesday 9 June). Both roles are
very demanding in terms of their vocal and
acting complexity, not to mention the artist’s
transfiguration. We very much look forward to hosting our guest artists.
Without doubt, these events will be among the peaks of the
upcoming festival. Valery Gergiev will be
conducting both operas.
On Monday 7 June we are
presenting Dmitri Tcherniakovs’s production
of Tristan und Isolde. This is
an opera of immense complexity for all of the
performers as it requires an incredible vocal strength
and a deep artistic involvement into the
story. Perhaps this is the most sincere story about
love. Each time Dmitri Tcherniakov is staging an opera
production, he strongly demands an opera-goer to
seriously think about the main ideas a composer posed
in an opera. His productions (Mr. Tcherniakov is always
in charge of both staging and scenery in all of his
productions) often become a source of controversy,
propose a non-standard, sometimes even a revolutionary
solution to expressing the story, but these solutions
are never superficial. The producer puts opera
heroes’ feelings into the front providing us with
an opportunity to focus on the most important drama
ideas and therefore he shifts the time of the story
into our modern days in order to emphasise its
importance at all times.
On Wednesday 9 June we are
giving the concert performance
of Das Rheingold, the preliminary
evening of Wagner’s
tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. Over the past 20 years, the repertoire of
our theater has been greatly enriched by the works of
the German classics. This is a serious step in the development of our opera company, which is the result of
years of work and the achievement of the highest artistic standards. One example of the
unique projects of great artistic value is the first
in modern Russia staged version of the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, presented by us more than twenty times in
St Petersburg and on tour. Now we feel that we came to being able to record this
large scale work on CD. We are planning to record the first part of the
tetralogy during the festival this year for the subsequent release on
Mariinsky Label.
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Photo — © Jeanne Susplugas
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Opera, Mariinsky Theatre
Wagner Tristan und Isolde
Opera in three acts
Staged by Dmitri Tcherniakov (2005)
King Marke: René Pape
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Monday 7 June, 6:00PM
Learn more | Buy tickets: 1280…3200 rub.
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Photo — © Katsuyoushi Tanaka
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Opera, Concert Hall
Wagner Das Rheingold
The preliminary evening
of the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen in four scenes
Concert performance
Watan: René Pape
Loge: Stephan Rügamer
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Wednesday 9 June, 8:00PM
Learn more | Buy tickets: 800…1700 rub.
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Our opera recordings of Wagner and other composers
We are planning to make a CD recording
of Das Rheingold for future release
on Mariinsky Label, our own recording
label. Last year, during the White Nights
Festival we have been making a recording
of Wagner’s Parsifal. This CD release
is due this autumn. The recording
of Das Rheingold this June marks the start
of our long-term project as we are planning to make a
recording of the complete Wagner’s
tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. In the meantime,
we have already released a few operatic works on Mariinsky Label:
Shostakovich’s The Nose
last year, and two of our most recent releases:
Shchedrin’s Enchanted Wanderer
and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex.
Shchedrin Enchanted Wanderer
Shchedrin Naughty Limerics
Learn more
on the Mariinsky Label web-site.
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Stravinsky Oedipus Rex
Stravinsky Les Noces
Learn more
on the Mariinsky Label web-site.
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Duke Bluebeard’s Castle — premiere of the festival at the Mariinsky Theatre
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11 and 14 June see two premiere
showings of Bela Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle on the
Mariinsky Theatre stage. This production was
originally staged for
the English National Opera, where it
was successfully presented last season. Exchange of
productions is a frequent practice among the world
opera companies, as it allows to share experiences
between colleagues and to expand
the audience of our viewers, presenting the best
examples of productions of “proven”
value. For example, our production of Britten’s Turn of the Screw
went to the stage of English National Opera two
seasons ago and was enthusiastically received by audiences in London.
It is noteworthy that Bartók’s opera is sung in Hungarian, a language that is relatively rare used in
the genre of opera. The language is quite difficult to learn
and pronounce, so it is particularly important how well soloists will be
able to reveal its beauty and charm of sound. For this premiere we
invited the mezzo-soprano Elena Zhidkova and bass-baritone Sir Willard White,
perhaps the best and most remarkable performers of the
opera roles these days. Sir Willard White is
particularly well remembered in St Petersburg as he
was involved in three concerts of our project Artist of the Month in December
2009. Elena Zhidkova took part in the opening of the
festival Stars of the White Nights
this year, performing Berlioz’s song cycle
Les nuits d’été together
with the Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre under Valery Gergiev.
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
was recorded on CD in London in January 2009, by the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, with the
participation of Elena Zhidkova and Sir Willard White. We look forward to the
premiere of this sad, but sincere and sensual Bartók’s opera on stage of our
theatre, with the participation of these outstanding performers.
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Poster — © English National Opera
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Opera, Mariinsky Theatre
Bartók Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
Stage production by Daniel Kramer
Judith: Elena Zhidkova
Duke Bluebeard: Sir Willard White
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Friday 11 June, 6:00PM
Learn more | Buy tickets: 960…3200 rub.
Monday 14 June, 6:00PM
Learn more | Buy tickets: 960…3200 rub.
Friday 25 June, 6:00PM
Learn more | Buy tickets: 960…3200 rub.
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Recorded on CD
Bartók Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
Judith: Elena Zhidkova
Duke Bluebeard: Sir Willard White
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
London Symphony Orchestra
Recording dates: 27 & 29 January 2009
Learn more about this release on LSO Live web-site.
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Enter our prize draw
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We congratulate the winners of our last online quiz: Alexander Alexandrov,
Elena Klotchkova and Irina Krasikova. Their names were selected randomly out of
ten readers of our previous e-newsletter
who correctly answered all five questions
of our second e-quiz (1 — b and/or e, 2 — b and/or e,
3 — d, 4 — a, 5 — e). We sent them separate e-mails describing of how
they can receive their awards.
You are welcome to take part in our next e-quiz. Send us your answers to
the questions listed below by the end of Sunday 6
June and if you answer all five questions correctly, your
name will be put into our prize draw. To enter the prize draw you need to send us your correct answers
either by e-mail to marketing@mariinsky.ru,
or by twitting a direct personal message to either of
our twitter-accounts mariinskyen
or mariinskyru
(please quote your name and e-mail address so that we can contact you).
Questions of our third e-quiz are related to the upcoming premiere of
Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. Prizes include tickets to the premiere
performances, playbills and programs signed by the artists and music
CDs of LSO Live recording of the opera conducted by Valery Gergiev, with the
participation of Elena Zhidkova and Sir Willard White. Three winners will be
selected randomly by a computer program from a list of
those who correctly answer all five questions of the e-quiz and send us the answers by the end
of Sunday 6 June. Winners and prizes will be announced in our next
e-newsletter. Best of luck!
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Question 1
In the
libretto of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, libretto’s eight-line
stanzas go back to traditional Szek ballads. In which
country do most of Szeks live nowadays?
(a) Slovakia
(b) Serbia
(c) Romania
(d) Hungary
(e) Slovenia
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Question 2
Remove from
this list names of two composers that did not compose
any opera on the Duke Bluebeard story.
(a) Jacques Offenbach
(b) Paul Dukas
(c) Jules Massenet
(d) Vladimir Rannev
(e) Thomas Adès
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Question 3
Name the
famous Russian artist of the first half of the 20-th
century that illustrated the Russian edition of
Maurice Maeterlinck play Ariane and Bluebeard.
(a) Nicholas Roerich
(b) Natalia Goncharova
(c) Mikhail Larionov
(d) Alexandre Benois
(e) Konstantin Somov
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Question 4
What was
hidden behind the fourth door in the
Bluebeard’s castle according to Bartók’s opera libretto?
(a) Bluebeard’s torture chamber
(b) The garden
(c) The treasury
(d) The lake of tears
(e) The armoury
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Question 5
What other work was
performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery
Gergiev in the concerts on 27 & 29 January 2009 along
with Bartók’s opera Duke Bluebeard’s
Castle, which was recorded on LSO Live then?
(a) Suite from the ballet Cinderella by Prokofiev
(b) Symphonic Dances by Rachmaninov
(c) Music for Strings, Celesta and Percussion by Bartók
(d) The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky
(e) The Poem of Ecstasy by Scriabin
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