| Valery Gergiev opened the Easter Festival at the Conservatory The opening ceremony of the Easter Festival went surprisingly smoothly and without any glitches - Valery Gergiev, according to tradition, was a little late when giving an interview on television, but hardly anyone blamed the maestro for the delay. Everyone appreciated the significance of the event - now we have our own, Moscow Gergiev. After all, just recently we could not even dream of this. Yuri Luzhkov, who took the stage for the traditional greeting, unequivocally stated that the Easter Festival is serious and long-term. He was followed by Archbishop Arseny of Istra with a welcoming speech from the Patriarch of All Rus'. Gergiev, in turn, briefly thanked both of them and announced from the stage that he wanted to dedicate this concert to the memory of Yevgeny Svetlanov.
The program was fully consistent with the Easter theme: there was a beautiful program composition (the “Bright Holiday” overture), and a loud patriotic opus (the cantata “Alexander Nevsky” by Prokofiev), and a world premiere (an opus by Vladimir Martynov, specially created for the festival). The only thing indigestible, at first glance, was Stravinsky’s ballet “The Firebird,” staged at the very end, full of epic leisureliness, very colorful, but very long. However, it was “The Firebird” that turned out best: the orchestra played the ballet luxuriously and with gusto. Gergiev, himself resembling a soaring eagle, took out colors of extraordinary beauty from the orchestral texture, groped for hidden echoes in the depths of the score and frightened the audience with unexpected changes when, after the rustling piano strings, some deafening chord from the entire orchestra followed. Martynov’s previously performed opus, on the contrary, surprised me with its complete lack of contrasts. Beautiful, fragrant music, in which the intonations of the late romantic flair were intricately mixed (a little Mahler, a little Wagner, a little Rimsky-Korsakov), acted on the audience like an antidepressant. “Alexander Nevsky” had a somewhat pale appearance - the Mariinsky choristers who appeared on stage were clearly “in disheveled feelings,” and the raging orchestra did not give the choir the slightest chance to somehow rectify the situation. For many, however, the main highlight of Prokofiev’s cantata was not the choristers, but mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, who treated the audience to a wonderful mezzo voce in her only aria. So the first day of Easter can be considered a success. Mikhail FIKHTENGOLTS |
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