Quality mark from the time of Catherine
Baltasar Galuppi's opera "The Shepherd King" was performed in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. Before that, it was performed in Russia only once - in 1766 to celebrate the coronation of Catherine II. And 233 years later it made a splash.

The booklet note “an antique opera in concert performance” announced that a rarity was on the agenda. That the rarity did not have enough money for a full-fledged stage embodiment, therefore - a concert one, without scenery and costumes. It is known that last year the restored version of the opera was staged as a full-fledged performance in the Italian city of Udina. But for us this only meant that we got horns and legs from the rarity. That is music.
There are suspicions that the Italian production still failed to recreate the costumes and scenery of Catherine’s times. Because, logically, it was the decorative part with the bells and whistles beloved by the Russian Empress that should have “delayed” the entire course of the performance. A whimsical production, and not at all a complicated plot about a shepherdess restored to royal rights, was to be the highlight of the opus created by the Venetian Galuppi, based on the stamp of the signature librettist of the 18th century, Pietro Metastasio. Unlike the screenwriters of heartbreaking modern soap operas, Metastasio knew how to cleverly twist family stories. For example, order in The Shepherd King is restored by Alexander the Great.
The music of the opera as a whole is a cascade of arias and duets, interspersed with recitatives and divertissement inserts. In particular, a set of colossally complex tricks for two countertenors and three sopranos. In the case of average execution, this can only generate affection and satisfy scientific interest. But the execution turned out to be first-class. A group of singers specially recruited by violinist and leader of the Academy of Ancient Music ensemble Tatyana Grindenko demonstrated excellent abilities. After the half-hearted Carmen at the Stanislavsky Theatre, the dysfunctional Maria from Helikon’s Mazepa, the very vulnerable Bolshoi prima in one evening, hearing three high-quality sopranos at once was an unexpected joy.
Newly-minted Gnesinka graduate Galina Muradova (instead of countertenor), coloratura soprano from Yekaterinburg Lyudmila Shilova and Muscovite Yana Ivanilova not only showed general class skills. Their parts shone with precise, intelligent colors, which indicates their competent mastery of the style of baroque singing. The one that has been firmly forgotten in our country since the times of the young “Madrigal” and the Estonian ensemble “Hortus Musicus”. Some listeners suggested that they were dealing with the effect of microphone amplification. But that’s just it, everything was acoustically clean. The flexible lyric tenor of Marat Galiakhmetov (as Alexander the Great) and mezzo Marina Filippova from St. Petersburg completed the exquisitely harmonious voice composition.
Matching the soloists was the chamber ensemble led by the experienced Grindenko. According to the requirements of the score, only a couple of wind instruments were missing, but even without them, the “Academy of Ancient Music” managed to amaze with impeccable articulation, delicate effects of authentic music playing and strict discipline of collective sound. Against the backdrop of the Moscow premieres of the current season, the antique “The Shepherd King” was suddenly banned from first place. Despite the missing context (the presented opus has nothing to compare with in our poster) and the unrealization of the opera in the form of an opera. Of course, it would have been more pleasant to see the performance in full, but - in a rare case - the musicians convinced of the consistency of what was not seen with their playing.

ELENA K-CHEREMNYKH

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 84 dated May 20, 1999, p. 10