• Second opera premiere of the 228th season: L’elisir d’amore
• Ballet masterpiece revival: The Legend of Love
• On tour to Moscow: Golden Mask Festival
• Another l’elisir: The Makropulos Affair

Early next week, our theater will be presenting the second premiere of the 228th season: an opera by Gaetano Donizetti L’Elisir d’Amore. This is the first staging of this masterpiece in the modern history of the Mariinsky Theatre — before the opera was staged only in the 19th century (three times). The production, staged by the famous French director Laurent Pelly and designed by Chantal Thomas is a co-production of the Opéra national de Paris and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. L’Elisir d’Amore by Pelly-Thomas is recognized as one of Europe’s best performances of the work.

The main roles in the opera, which effectively allow singers to display their vocal abilities and charisma, are prepared by the leading artists of our theater. Anna Netrebko, an opera soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre, is very well familiar with the Pelly-Thomas production - she participated in its performances in London and Paris, and believes that this bright, sparkling, humorous performance will be a great success for our opera company and will be one of the most popular productions among St Petersburg audiences. Anna will be singing the premiere performances on 24 & 27 January.

Next week, the ballet company of our theater will be reviving a real masterpiece of the 20th century: a ballet The Legend of Love set to the music by Arif Melikov and choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich. This performance is a cornerstone one in the history of the Mariinsky Ballet, which a half-century back then started learning and developing a style of one of the greatest choreographers. Choreography by Yuri Grigorovich is extremely expressive, virtuosic, it uses over-the possibility of plasticity of the human body, drawing on stage an array of tremendous geometric forms of dance. Music-wise it is enriched with an oriental flavor, and, in conjunction with purposely modest decorations and stylistically verified lighting solutions, it delicately complements the dance, thus creating scenes of perfect balance of all components of this impressive performance.

Almost all leading dancers of our theater of several generations took part in performances of The Legend of Love. The Mariinsky stage hosted great performers of the Queen Mekhmeneh Bahnu and her faithful Vizier, a loving couple of Princess Shyrin and a young artist Ferkhad. The plot of this ballet dates back to an ancient oriental legend, filled with a little pathetic, “ideologically correct” (in tune with the era, when the ballet was created) idea of renunciation of personal happiness for that of the public. However, the ballet sill remains rather actual nowadays, because of its beauty and expression. Bright expressive techniques and innovative solutions by Yuri Grigorovich, without doubt, were ahead of their time.

© Natasha Razina

The Mariinsky Theatre traditionally performs at the annual National Theatre Festival Golden Mask. One of the separate avenues of this festival is a special project Premieres of the Mariinsky Theatre in Moscow, which gives the residents of the capital a chance to see the latest achievement of our theater, without the need of coming to St Petersburg. In 2011, our theater will perform at the Bolshoi Theatre (opera performances, January), and the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre (ballet performances, March). On 24 & 25 January at the Bolshoi Theatre we are presenting Bela Bartók’s opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle staged by Daniel Kramer. The production of the English National Opera, where it was successfully presented in 2009 received its St Petersburg premiere in June 2010 at the Stars of the White Nights Festival.

In the first evening, the opera will be sung in Hungarian, quite challenging to study and pronounce, relatively rare in the genre of opera. The performance will be featuring mezzo-soprano Elena Zhidkova and bass-baritone Sir Willard White — perhaps the most remarkable performers of these difficult roles nowadays, who are able to unveil the beauty and charm of the sound text of the libretto. Valery Gergiev will conduct this performance.

On 1 February, for the first time after a series of premiere performances in October-November 2010, our theater will present Leoš Janáček’s opera The Makropulos Affair staged by a highly acclaimed British director Graham Vick. The production is a real thriller, in which both the author (the opera is after Karel Čapek’s comedy) and the director keep the main idea in secret until the end of performance. According to the producer’s idea, it is important to emphasise the satirical aspect of the opera this is an unusual solution for productions of operas by Janáček. Graham Vick decided to abandon any experiments after the manner of futurism. Outwardly simple staging of the opera should help the viewer to focus on the development of the plot of the story-thriller. Mystical overtones in this performance are underlined by the everyday design of costumes and scenery.