Περιγραφή
Καλλιτέχνες
The 100th birthday of Alexander Pushkin was celebrated in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia: Theatre performances, concerts, ballets and last but not least an opera performance were part of the programme. It was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who was commissioned to compose an opera and, together with the librettist Vladimir Belsky, adapted Pushkin’s fairytale poem ‘The Fairytale of the Tsar Saltan’. Tsar Saltan’ was Rimsky-Korsakov’s thirteenth opera, and for the composer himself it is one of the major works of his musical-dramatic oeuvre. At the latest since the stage play ‘Sadko’, the composer’s musical language has changed enormously: away from formal, harmonically based melodies and progressions tied to the tone-movement, towards a non-functional, consistently lyrical style. Korsakov himself writes: “I consider music in its essence to be a lyrical art. When they call me a poet, I am proud.” In fact, ‘Tsar Saltan’ is also characterized by extended poetic elements, especially elegiac melodies and an extremely virtuoso treatment of the orchestral apparatus, culminating in the world-famous ‘Hummelflug’. With an imaginative, colourful stage design, outstanding singers and the original musical conducting of Valery Gergiev, the 2016 Opera was performed at the Mariinsky Theatre, 101 years after its premiere at the same venue, and can now be heard on DVD and Blu-ray. As is so often the case with Mariinsky productions, it is the attention to detail that makes the stage work so appealing. This begins with the elaborately embroidered costumes and ends with the precise government work – all ingredients for a fairytale-like picture/sound experience. |