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Shchedrin's choral opera portrays the historical Boyarina Feodosiya Morozova, an aristocratic widow and Old Believer, drawing on Archbishop Avvakum's account and inspired by Vasily Surikov's painting Boyarina Morozova.
Place: Seville, Spain, and surrounding hills Time: Around 1820 Alonso's scenario centers on Carmen, Don José and the bullfighter Escamillo. Carmen is a passionate, free-spirited woman in contrast to the temperamental and fickle Don José. Fate, a ballerina dressed in black and a representation of Carmen's alter ego, tells Carmen's fortune with a deck of cards. A fight with tobacco dealers leads to Carmen's arrest by Captain Zúñiga. In jail, she seduces Don José and convinces him to release her. Carmen is subsequently caught in a love triangle between Don José and popular bullfighter Escamillo. Boris Messerer's sets included a mock bullring which symbolizes life, uniting the bullfight and Carmen's destiny in a sinister personage. Masked spectators and a uniformed judge represent society's disapproval for the unconventional behavior of Carmen and her lovers. Fate reappears in the final act playing the role of a bull and the three main characters meet in the arena. Carmen dances alternatively with Fate, Escamillo and Don José until she is stabbed. She dies caressing Don José's face, revealing him as the assassin.
Shchedrin's three-act Russian-language opera adapts Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls. A radio recording was made in 1976, followed by a vinyl and CD release in 1982.
The opera opens with Humbert Humbert facing a court after his relationship with Lolita. He marries her mother to gain access to the girl, then travels with Lolita after her mother dies. Lolita later escapes his control and becomes involved with filmmaker Quilty; Humbert kills Quilty and is sentenced to death.
A crime story set in a 1960s Midwestern town: drifter Luca arrives at a garage and diner, where he and Lana plot to kill her husband Dino. Angelo is wrongly blamed, later escapes prison, and returns for revenge. The story loosely adapts James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Shchedrin’s first opera, with Varvara among its roles and a humorous quadrille in Act 2.
Shchedrin's Russian-language concert opera is based on Nikolai Leskov's novel The Enchanted Wanderer. It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for Lorin Maazel and later received its Russian premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre.
Tsar Nicholas I challenges Russian workmen to improve on a steel flea made by English craftsmen for his brother Alexander I. The Left-Hander attaches tiny horseshoes to the flea and is sent to England, where he declines offers to remain and marry an Englishwoman. On his return voyage a storm and a drunken English sailor imperil the ship. The Left-Hander reaches Saint Petersburg drunk, is arrested, and sends the Tsar a warning that cleaning muskets with brick dust will leave the Russian army unprepared for war. He dies; the flea sings a lullaby, and the opera ends with a burial rite.
The Seagull is a ballet in two acts by Rodion Shchedrin based on the 1896 play The Seagull of Anton Chekhov. The authors of the libretto: Rodion Shchedrin and Valery Levental. It was composed in 1980 and premiered on 27 May 1980 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, choreographed by Maya Plisetskaya. With her experience with the ballet Anna Karenina, Plisetskaya created the choreography and performed the title role. After the premiere, ballet critic Natalia Krymova wrote: "Maya Plisetskaya's role in this performance is fully consistent with the spirit of the play and expresses the diversity of emotions so important to the author. Plisetskaya as a choreographer clearly professes what Treplev says: "new forms are needed." Thus, she breaks the traditional canons of ballet, replacing them with pantomime. Personifying Nina Zarechnaya, she dances only what "flows freely from the soul." Plisetskaya's dance in "The Seagull" can rightly be attributed to these words: "the life of the human spirit." A curious event occurs at the Bolshoi premiere. A woman fell asleep in the audience at the orchestra. She dreams that a gas cylinder explodes in her country house and she screams throughout the hall. Hundreds of spectators stared at her, hanging on their boxes. Everyone on stage froze, but the orchestra continued to play. And she screamed when the sound engineer very resolutely imitated a shot at a seagull.
A two-act ballet adaptation of Chekhov’s play. Maya Plisetskaya’s choreography rejects traditional ballet conventions in favor of pantomime and emphasizes the characters’ emotional lives.
Shchedrin's choral opera portrays the historical Boyarina Feodosiya Morozova, an aristocratic widow and Old Believer, drawing on Archbishop Avvakum's account and inspired by Vasily Surikov's painting Boyarina Morozova.
Place: Seville, Spain, and surrounding hills Time: Around 1820 Alonso's scenario centers on Carmen, Don José and the bullfighter Escamillo. Carmen is a passionate, free-spirited woman in contrast to the temperamental and fickle Don José. Fate, a ballerina dressed in black and a representation of Carmen's alter ego, tells Carmen's fortune with a deck of cards. A fight with tobacco dealers leads to Carmen's arrest by Captain Zúñiga. In jail, she seduces Don José and convinces him to release her. Carmen is subsequently caught in a love triangle between Don José and popular bullfighter Escamillo. Boris Messerer's sets included a mock bullring which symbolizes life, uniting the bullfight and Carmen's destiny in a sinister personage. Masked spectators and a uniformed judge represent society's disapproval for the unconventional behavior of Carmen and her lovers. Fate reappears in the final act playing the role of a bull and the three main characters meet in the arena. Carmen dances alternatively with Fate, Escamillo and Don José until she is stabbed. She dies caressing Don José's face, revealing him as the assassin.
Shchedrin's three-act Russian-language opera adapts Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls. A radio recording was made in 1976, followed by a vinyl and CD release in 1982.
The opera opens with Humbert Humbert facing a court after his relationship with Lolita. He marries her mother to gain access to the girl, then travels with Lolita after her mother dies. Lolita later escapes his control and becomes involved with filmmaker Quilty; Humbert kills Quilty and is sentenced to death.
A crime story set in a 1960s Midwestern town: drifter Luca arrives at a garage and diner, where he and Lana plot to kill her husband Dino. Angelo is wrongly blamed, later escapes prison, and returns for revenge. The story loosely adapts James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Shchedrin’s first opera, with Varvara among its roles and a humorous quadrille in Act 2.
Shchedrin's Russian-language concert opera is based on Nikolai Leskov's novel The Enchanted Wanderer. It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for Lorin Maazel and later received its Russian premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre.
Tsar Nicholas I challenges Russian workmen to improve on a steel flea made by English craftsmen for his brother Alexander I. The Left-Hander attaches tiny horseshoes to the flea and is sent to England, where he declines offers to remain and marry an Englishwoman. On his return voyage a storm and a drunken English sailor imperil the ship. The Left-Hander reaches Saint Petersburg drunk, is arrested, and sends the Tsar a warning that cleaning muskets with brick dust will leave the Russian army unprepared for war. He dies; the flea sings a lullaby, and the opera ends with a burial rite.
The Seagull is a ballet in two acts by Rodion Shchedrin based on the 1896 play The Seagull of Anton Chekhov. The authors of the libretto: Rodion Shchedrin and Valery Levental. It was composed in 1980 and premiered on 27 May 1980 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, choreographed by Maya Plisetskaya. With her experience with the ballet Anna Karenina, Plisetskaya created the choreography and performed the title role. After the premiere, ballet critic Natalia Krymova wrote: "Maya Plisetskaya's role in this performance is fully consistent with the spirit of the play and expresses the diversity of emotions so important to the author. Plisetskaya as a choreographer clearly professes what Treplev says: "new forms are needed." Thus, she breaks the traditional canons of ballet, replacing them with pantomime. Personifying Nina Zarechnaya, she dances only what "flows freely from the soul." Plisetskaya's dance in "The Seagull" can rightly be attributed to these words: "the life of the human spirit." A curious event occurs at the Bolshoi premiere. A woman fell asleep in the audience at the orchestra. She dreams that a gas cylinder explodes in her country house and she screams throughout the hall. Hundreds of spectators stared at her, hanging on their boxes. Everyone on stage froze, but the orchestra continued to play. And she screamed when the sound engineer very resolutely imitated a shot at a seagull.
A two-act ballet adaptation of Chekhov’s play. Maya Plisetskaya’s choreography rejects traditional ballet conventions in favor of pantomime and emphasizes the characters’ emotional lives.