First Public Performance of Anna Netrebko Singing Lady Macbeth

As part of the opening night gala for the new Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, soprano Anna Netrebko sang selections from Macbeth (Verdi), Don Giovanni (Mozart), and Iolanta (Tchaikovsky), extraordinarily back-to-back. Many more pictures, and a video of the entire gala, are after the jump.

Anna Netrebko Hometown Receives Aid From Valery Gergiev

"O diretor do Teatro Mariinsky de São Petersburgo, maestro Valery Gergiev, tomou a decisão de doar, aproximadamente, R$ 62 mil, arrecadados durante a última apresentação da casa de espetáculos no domingo, 8, às vitimas de enchentes que atingiram a região de Krasnodar. Neste dia, no âmbito de XX Festival Musical Noites Brancas, no palco subiram a Orquestra Sinfônica sob a direção do maestro, os solistas de ópera Olga Sergueeva e Yuri Vorobiov e o pianista japonês, cego de nascença, Nobuyuki Tsiji. A mesma quantia o Teatro irá transferir ao fundo para as vitimas das enchentes na Kuban, depois do concerto da Anna Netrebko que será realizado no Teatro Mariinsky, no dia 20 de julho. Segundo a representante do Teatro, a solista Anna Netrebko também nasceu em Krasnodar e, para ela, esta atitude representa um gesto de apoio aos seus conterrâneos." [Source]

Google Pushes Anna Netrebko to #1 on Russian Forbes List

Anna Netrebko photographed at the Mariinsky Theatre
in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

"The Russian edition of Forbes magazine has named 50 Russians who have “conquered” the world. The Forbes list includes businessmen, scientists, athletes, and also workers in culture....The opera singer Anna Netrebko ranks as No.1 on the Forbes list of the most influential workers in culture because the number of inquiries about her in the Google Web Search is the highest. Following her are Yuri Bashmet, Timur Bekmambetov, Valery Gergiev, and Dmiti Hvorostovsky." [Source]

"Aida" Under Finzi Pasca's Big-Top Production at the Mariinsky

"A minimalist and deeply philosophical show is perhaps not quite what most people would expect from a production of Verdi’s Aida directed by a man who has made an international career producing shows for a circus. Yet this is exactly what Swiss-born director Daniele Finzi Pasca is offering audiences at the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall....What links Aida with Finzi Pasca’s show Corteo, with which Cirque du Soleil toured Russia last year, is a sense of surreal fantasy. In Corteo, the audience watches a clown’s dream about his death and funeral that is magically transformed into a carnival. Aida is designed in the same ethereal aesthetic. Firstly, the director has cleansed the production of any visual element that would link it to a particular era or ethnicity. The costumes of both the Egyptians and the Nubians border in style somewhere between circus grotesque and futuristic minimalism....In terms of spirit, Pasca’s Aida is both humane and intimate. The director seemingly chose to make Amneris a central character. Yekaterina Semenchuk’s performance strengthens Pasca’s ideas. Head and shoulders above the rest of the cast, Semenchuk dazzled as the pharaoh’s daughter, tormented by her jealousy, engrossed by her sorrow, troubled by her tardy remorse and devastated by her sudden loneliness. Her stage partners failed to create as emotionally captivating incarnations of their characters. Yekaterina Shimanovich was technically adroit as Aida, yet she remained unsettlingly estranged from her supposedly beloved Radames (Avgust Amonov). It did not help that Amonov chose to present a somewhat anemic portrayal of his character, as if trying to depict someone who leaves it up to the women around him to decide his fate. Aida’s emotional connection to her father (Edem Umerov) was far more compelling. Umerov created a powerful image of Aida’s father, Amonasro, the King of Nubia, at once noble and passionate." [Source]

Read an extensive interview with Daniele Finzi Pasca about the production by clicking here.