Bolshoi Theatre Reopening Gala Concert - The Opera Edition

"President Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin hosted the event billed as the 'rebirth' of one of Russia’s cultural treasures, featuring opera stars Placido Domingo, Angela Gheorghiu and Natalie Dessay and ballet dancers Natalia Osipova, Svetlana Zakharova and Ivan Vasiliev. The renovation is intended to transform the 1820s theater in central Moscow from a crumbling, acoustically inadequate beauty into a state-of-the-art facility. It is believed to be the most expensive theater renovation project ever, according to Russia's RT network. Invitations for the event were sent out by the Kremlin administration and not by the theater itself and reports have surfaced that that ticket tickets have been up for grabs on the Internet for as much as $65,000. The Bolshoi administration denies any involvement in the matter. 'Could you imagine what the reaction would be if London's Royal Opera House gave up the entire theater to the presidential administration?' Russian music critic Marina Gaikovich told the Interfax news agency. The restoration has been mired in controversy from the start, overshooting the original budget over four times and missing its original reopening date of 2008 as the condition of the building was found to be far worse than first believed. Symbolically, restorers removed the Soviet hammer and sickle from the curtain, while the Soviet coat of arms has been pulled from the facade, replaced with the double-headed eagle, the Tsarist symbol readopted by Russia." [Source]

OPERA SELECTIONS FROM THE PROGRAM

Violeta Urmana: "Prastite Vy, Xalmy"
from The Maid of Orleans (Tchaikovsky)

Dmitri Hvorostovsky: "Ya vas lyublyu"
from Pique Dame (Tchaikovsky)

Natalie Dessay: "Ne poi, krasavitsa, pri mne”
lyrics by Alexander Pushkin and music by Rachmaninoff

Yelena Zelenskaya, Anna Aglatova, Yekaterina Scherbachenko, Svetlana Shilova
sing “Nature and Love” by Tchaikovsky

Irina Dolzhenko, Lolitta Semenina, Andrey Grigoriev, Maxim Paster, Boris Rudak:
"Final Scene" from Betrothal in a Monastery (Prokofiev)

Angela Gheorghiu: "Ach, istomilas ja gorem"
from Pique Dame (Tchaikovsky)

Son Escapes Fratricide by High Priestess Sister in 1779

Les Remords d’Oreste (1862), William-Adolphe Bouguereau
"Ô malhereuse Iphigénie" sung by Violeta Urmana

Iphigénie en Tauride (Iphigenia in Tauris) is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. It was his fifth opera for the French stage. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard. With Iphigénie, Gluck took his operatic reform to its logical conclusion. The recitatives are shorter and they are récitatif accompagné (i.e. the strings and perhaps other instruments are playing, not just continuo accompaniment). The normal dance movements that one finds in the French tragédie en musique are almost entirely absent. The drama is ultimately based on the play Iphigenia in Tauris by the ancient Greek dramatist Euripides which deals with stories concerning the family of Agamemnon in the aftermath of the Trojan War. Iphigénie en Tauride was first performed in Paris on May 18, 1779, and was a great success. Some think that the head of the Paris Opéra, Devismes, had attempted to stoke up the rivalry between Gluck and Niccolò Piccinni, an Italian composer also resident in the French capital, by asking them both to set an opera on the subject of Iphigenia in Tauris. In the event, Piccinni's Iphigénie en Tauride was not premiered until January 1781 and did not enjoy the popularity that Gluck's work did. [Source]

Plot summary after the jump.

Le Fils De Cadix: Ismael Jordi

In 1973 tenor Ismael Jordi was born in Jerez de la Frontera, a municipality in the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia in southwestern Spain situated midway between the sea and the mountains. His great-grandmother was the only one with musical abilities in his family. He was a semi-professional soccer player, but was always interested in singing. He took voice lessons with Argentinian tenor Daniel Munoz.

He attended Madrid's Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía starting in 1998. He studied voice with Alfredo Kraus for two years. He went on to take lessons with Suso Mariategui, Edelmiro Arnaltes, Teresa Berganza and Manuel Cid. He currently studies voice with Angelo Capobianco in Verona.

Violeta Urmana Hailed the Lithuanian Queen of Opera

Soprano Violeta Urmana graces the cover of Bravissimo magazine (Dec 2010/Jan 2011) to celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the Lithuanian National Opera. She will appear as Leonora in La Forza del Destino during Opera Week, as well singing a New Year's Eve concert with husband Alfredo Nigro for the festivities.

“Violeta Urmana is a very rare and exceptional phenomenon not only in Lithuania, but also in the context of all other opera soloists in the whole world. It is enough for her to simply step on stage - one immediately wants to stand up out of respect, such strong is her personal magic. It seems that all applause is dedicated to her only, even if her role in the opera is not the main one... She is an exceptionally bright personality and unique not only because of her outstanding voice, but also because of the personal qualities.” (Gintautas Kėvišas, General Manager- Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre)