This April Van Walsum Management’s distinguished series in partnership with the Mariinsky Theatre and Valery Gergiev continues...
After the success of Wagner’s Ring in 2007 and then Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Adam’s Giselle in 2008, the project recommences with Shostakovich’s fearsome opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and an Easter performance of Wagner’s Parsifal Act III (concert version).
On 8 and 9 April the Mariinsky Theatre performs Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the newly refurbished Teatro Pérez Galdós in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. With the cast to include Sergei Aleksashkin, Yevgeny Akimov and Olga Sergeyeva, Irina Molostova’s acclaimed production will be conducted by the Mariinsky Theatre’s Artistic Director Valery Gergiev.
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: (Click on photos to enlarge)
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Traditionally programmed for Good Friday, the performance of Wagner’s Parsifal Act III on 10 April is dedicated to Rafael Nebot, director of the Teatro Pérez Galdós until his passing away last August. Valery Gergiev conducts the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre alongside soloists Gennady Bezzubenkov (Gurnemanz), Sergey Semishkur (Parsifal) and Alexey Markov (Amfortas).
The programme:
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Written by Shostakovich in 1934, the opera is based on a story by Nikolai Leskov (libretto by Alexander Preis and the composer). After its first two years of tremendous success Lady Macbeth was condemned in an anonymous article in Pravda (the Communist Party official newspaper) denouncing the opera as "tickling the perverted taste of the bourgeoisie with its fidgety, screaming neurotic music". The opera disappeared from playbills almost overnight marking the beginning of Shostakovich’s lifelong artistic struggle with the totalitarian Soviet state. Performances in the Soviet Union were banned for almost 30 years before Shostakovich revised the opera, removing some of the controversial scenes and renaming it Katerina Izmailova, but since his death in 1975 support for the original version has been resurrected.
Parsifal
Based on an epic medieval poem, Parsifal tells of the eponymous Arthurian knight and his quest for the Holy Grail. Act III (the final act of Wagner’s final opera) culminates at Easter when Parsifal, through compassion, brings redemption to the knights and heals their wounded leader Amfortas. The allegory of absolving mankind's original sin holds particular poignancy when considering its setting of Good Friday. The opera premiered at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882.