14.03.2019
Pushkin plus Shostakovich
On 23 March, as part of our series of chamber music evenings, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s opera singers will perform a children’s play set to music: The Tale of The Priest and of his Workman Balda. This adaptation of Pushkin’s fairy tale was written by Shostakovich in the mid-1930s for an animated opera which never made it to the screen.
„The melodic style of this composition was new and unusual for Shostakovich; it features folksy, carnivalesque motifs reminiscent of Russian lubki, colourful popular prints,“ says Maria Kopyseva, who compiled the programme. „The manuscript score had long been stored in the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture and was completed at the beginning of the 2000s by Vadim Bibergan, a former pupil of Shostakovich. This is a completely unexpected facet of Shostakovich’s oeuvre that will be a discovery even for adults who are very familiar with his music.“
In the early 1980s „comic scenes“ based on the score were very popular with audiences at the Maly Opera Theatre (now the Mikhailovsky). The production was performed 146 times. In 2016 excerpts from the musical fairy tale were performed for an audience of children as part of our series of recitals featuring vocal chamber music.
The performers on the evening of 23 March will be opera soloists Svetlana Monchak, Yury Monchak, Tatiana Ryaguzova, Alexander Shakhov, Alexey Kuligin, Alexander Bezrukov, Ekaterina Egorova, Andrey Tulnikov, Alexander Volynkin and Ekaterina Fenina.
„The melodic style of this composition was new and unusual for Shostakovich; it features folksy, carnivalesque motifs reminiscent of Russian lubki, colourful popular prints,“ says Maria Kopyseva, who compiled the programme. „The manuscript score had long been stored in the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture and was completed at the beginning of the 2000s by Vadim Bibergan, a former pupil of Shostakovich. This is a completely unexpected facet of Shostakovich’s oeuvre that will be a discovery even for adults who are very familiar with his music.“
In the early 1980s „comic scenes“ based on the score were very popular with audiences at the Maly Opera Theatre (now the Mikhailovsky). The production was performed 146 times. In 2016 excerpts from the musical fairy tale were performed for an audience of children as part of our series of recitals featuring vocal chamber music.
The performers on the evening of 23 March will be opera soloists Svetlana Monchak, Yury Monchak, Tatiana Ryaguzova, Alexander Shakhov, Alexey Kuligin, Alexander Bezrukov, Ekaterina Egorova, Andrey Tulnikov, Alexander Volynkin and Ekaterina Fenina.
