24.04.2019
The Voice of our Generation
The programme of the concert in the Grand Hall of the Philharmonia on 1 May is identical to the one heard by the people of Leningrad on 1 May 1942. Boris Pinkhasovich will sing Mazepa’s arioso from Mazepa and Robert’s aria from Iolanta, accompanied by the Mikhailovsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra. „We will never be able to imagine what it was like for the artists to perform in a city under siege,“ says the soloist. „But by repeating that concert, we can express our respect for their heroism and our grief for the victims of that dreadful tragedy with the voices of our generation. It will be our heartfelt tribute to the memory of those who were fated to live through the siege. It is an important, blood-soaked subject, and it is vital that we raise it.“
On that day in 1942, the arias were sung by Honoured Artist of the RSFSR Valentin Legkov, who was a soloist at the Kirov Theatre. When the theatre was evacuated to Perm, he remained in the besieged city and joined a company which performed in the People’s House on the Petrograd Side, now the Music Hall. During the war Legkov gave over 800 performances in the city and at the Leningrad front.
There are numerous eyewitness accounts of what 1 May was like in the besieged city. „Everything feels festive,“ wrote war correspondent Pavel Luknitsky in his diary from the front. „The lively eyes of passers-by admire the buds coming out on the trees, the first green shoots of the approaching summer. Other people, still weak, sit by the entrance to their homes on benches or on chairs they have brought outside, raising their pale faces to the sun’s rays with half-closed eyes, enjoying the warmth and greedily drinking it into their every pore. The city is gathering newfound strength. Its breathing is becoming even.“
On that day in 1942, the arias were sung by Honoured Artist of the RSFSR Valentin Legkov, who was a soloist at the Kirov Theatre. When the theatre was evacuated to Perm, he remained in the besieged city and joined a company which performed in the People’s House on the Petrograd Side, now the Music Hall. During the war Legkov gave over 800 performances in the city and at the Leningrad front.
There are numerous eyewitness accounts of what 1 May was like in the besieged city. „Everything feels festive,“ wrote war correspondent Pavel Luknitsky in his diary from the front. „The lively eyes of passers-by admire the buds coming out on the trees, the first green shoots of the approaching summer. Other people, still weak, sit by the entrance to their homes on benches or on chairs they have brought outside, raising their pale faces to the sun’s rays with half-closed eyes, enjoying the warmth and greedily drinking it into their every pore. The city is gathering newfound strength. Its breathing is becoming even.“
