<Translated from Russian automatically>
In the year of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 135th anniversary, the Bolshoi Theatre is paying genuinely great attention to the great Russian composer. Just over a month ago, the Bolshoi orchestra and Nikolai Lugansky performed all of Rachmaninoff’s concertos for piano and orchestra. And very soon, in mid-July, at the prestigious Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Bolshoi will present a concert performance of the Rachmaninoff operas "The Miserly Knight" and "Francesca da Rimini," the premieres of which took place at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1906 under the baton of the composer himself.
"The Miserly Knight" also "made it" onto the program of the latest subscription concert, which is commented on by the Bolshoi’s Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Alexander Vedernikov:
— Both of Rachmaninoff’s operas are quite difficult but very interesting, and I wanted to present at least one of them in Moscow as well. Many people expect concert performances of operas from the Bolshoi Theatre. And there are operas that truly benefit from a concert performance — for example, Iolanta or Samson and Delilah — operas that are dramatically somewhat sluggish, but very interesting musically.
As for Rachmaninoff, in my opinion, the specificity of his operas is that they look better in a concert performance than they do on stage. Either Rachmaninoff lacked experience, or mastery of operatic dramaturgy simply wasn't his forte. The opera Aleko, for example, is almost impossible to stage, partly because all the characters appear abruptly.
The Miserly Knight is also a rather peculiar composition. There is not a single female part, there is no chorus. The opera is written to an almost unchanged, only slightly abridged, text. That is, there is no libretto as such, but rather the text of Pushkin’s little tragedy, which, of course, is very good, as it is a wonderful literary work.
A successful final chord of the concert season, in my opinion, could also be the performance of a good solo violinist. And we managed — on fairly short notice — to organize such a performance. I had never played with Frank Peter Zimmermann before, but his recordings make a very strong impression. Of course, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff are not the most standard combination. But if you have already chosen Rachmaninoff, what else could possibly be in the other half besides more Rachmaninoff? In my view, some kind of classical concerto. And quite often, a program that is built not on the principle of similarity, but of juxtaposition, turns out to be very attractive.
Source.
In the year of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 135th anniversary, the Bolshoi Theatre is paying genuinely great attention to the great Russian composer. Just over a month ago, the Bolshoi orchestra and Nikolai Lugansky performed all of Rachmaninoff’s concertos for piano and orchestra. And very soon, in mid-July, at the prestigious Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Bolshoi will present a concert performance of the Rachmaninoff operas "The Miserly Knight" and "Francesca da Rimini," the premieres of which took place at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1906 under the baton of the composer himself.
"The Miserly Knight" also "made it" onto the program of the latest subscription concert, which is commented on by the Bolshoi’s Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Alexander Vedernikov:
— Both of Rachmaninoff’s operas are quite difficult but very interesting, and I wanted to present at least one of them in Moscow as well. Many people expect concert performances of operas from the Bolshoi Theatre. And there are operas that truly benefit from a concert performance — for example, Iolanta or Samson and Delilah — operas that are dramatically somewhat sluggish, but very interesting musically.
As for Rachmaninoff, in my opinion, the specificity of his operas is that they look better in a concert performance than they do on stage. Either Rachmaninoff lacked experience, or mastery of operatic dramaturgy simply wasn't his forte. The opera Aleko, for example, is almost impossible to stage, partly because all the characters appear abruptly.
The Miserly Knight is also a rather peculiar composition. There is not a single female part, there is no chorus. The opera is written to an almost unchanged, only slightly abridged, text. That is, there is no libretto as such, but rather the text of Pushkin’s little tragedy, which, of course, is very good, as it is a wonderful literary work.
A successful final chord of the concert season, in my opinion, could also be the performance of a good solo violinist. And we managed — on fairly short notice — to organize such a performance. I had never played with Frank Peter Zimmermann before, but his recordings make a very strong impression. Of course, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff are not the most standard combination. But if you have already chosen Rachmaninoff, what else could possibly be in the other half besides more Rachmaninoff? In my view, some kind of classical concerto. And quite often, a program that is built not on the principle of similarity, but of juxtaposition, turns out to be very attractive.
Source.
The Bolshoi continues to celebrate Sergei Rachmaninoff and presents Frank Peter Zimmermann to Russia
Bolshoi Theatre, June 30, 2008
