20.12.2016
Showcasing the gems of light opera
Our opera company has a magical treasure chest, hidden away in a secret place and brought out only on special occasions. When it is opened, it invariably results in an authentic festive atmosphere, along with much joy, good cheer, and pure delight. Whatever could there be in such a box? Extracts from the finest classical operettas, of course!
Why allow routine to dampen the festive spirit and the prospect of New Year delights? The opera singers at the Mikhailovsky Theatre invite you to enjoy a showcase of light operatic treasures at this enchanting time of year. An Evening of Operetta: From Offenbach to Kálmán will be held at the Hermitage Theatre on 29 December.
The highlight of the evening promises to be the debut performance of Boris Stepanov, who will try his hand at a comic role for the first time — no small task for this young tenor whose previous roles have been mostly dramatic. Stepanov, a prizewinner at the recent Onegin National Opera Awards, will be supported by singers who are all long-standing and close associates of the operetta: Marina Tregubovich, Boris Pinkhasovich, and Alexander Shakhov.
Boris Stepanov has chosen for his debut а piece from Jacques Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène. Two years after its premiere in Paris in 1866, Offenbach’s operetta was staged for the first time in Russia at the Mikhailovsky Theatre by touring French vocalists. Offenbach was a great satirist: in his operetta he had the Trojan prince Paris sing yodelling Tyrolean couplets. Given the troubled relations between Austria, France, and Italy at the time, one can only imagine how such jokes were received. Fans of Offenbach, however, were delighted.
Amongst other musical treasures on show will be Émile Waldteufel’s The Skaters’ Waltz. Irrespective of the weather, it’s a piece which always creates a wintery mood, transporting the audience back to the nineteenth century, when ladies would glide on the ice, arm in arm with their gentlemen partners, in large, outlandish skates resembling the shoes of a Persian prince. In the second part of the concert, pride of place is given to the csárdás — a Hungarian dance that fires the blood and makes the head whirl. It’s the very essence of the classical Viennese operetta. All the great masters, from Johann Strauss II to Lehár and Kálmán paid tribute to it. It is guaranteed that each and every member of the audience will walk out onto the brightly lit banks of the Neva at the end of the evening singing or whistling one or another of the enchanting melodies from this wonderful concert.
Why allow routine to dampen the festive spirit and the prospect of New Year delights? The opera singers at the Mikhailovsky Theatre invite you to enjoy a showcase of light operatic treasures at this enchanting time of year. An Evening of Operetta: From Offenbach to Kálmán will be held at the Hermitage Theatre on 29 December.
The highlight of the evening promises to be the debut performance of Boris Stepanov, who will try his hand at a comic role for the first time — no small task for this young tenor whose previous roles have been mostly dramatic. Stepanov, a prizewinner at the recent Onegin National Opera Awards, will be supported by singers who are all long-standing and close associates of the operetta: Marina Tregubovich, Boris Pinkhasovich, and Alexander Shakhov.
Boris Stepanov has chosen for his debut а piece from Jacques Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène. Two years after its premiere in Paris in 1866, Offenbach’s operetta was staged for the first time in Russia at the Mikhailovsky Theatre by touring French vocalists. Offenbach was a great satirist: in his operetta he had the Trojan prince Paris sing yodelling Tyrolean couplets. Given the troubled relations between Austria, France, and Italy at the time, one can only imagine how such jokes were received. Fans of Offenbach, however, were delighted.
Amongst other musical treasures on show will be Émile Waldteufel’s The Skaters’ Waltz. Irrespective of the weather, it’s a piece which always creates a wintery mood, transporting the audience back to the nineteenth century, when ladies would glide on the ice, arm in arm with their gentlemen partners, in large, outlandish skates resembling the shoes of a Persian prince. In the second part of the concert, pride of place is given to the csárdás — a Hungarian dance that fires the blood and makes the head whirl. It’s the very essence of the classical Viennese operetta. All the great masters, from Johann Strauss II to Lehár and Kálmán paid tribute to it. It is guaranteed that each and every member of the audience will walk out onto the brightly lit banks of the Neva at the end of the evening singing or whistling one or another of the enchanting melodies from this wonderful concert.
