Easter flood

The Moscow Easter Festival opens on Sunday

Headed by Valery Gergiev, the fifth anniversary Moscow Easter Festival will open on a festive Sunday evening at 21.00. The opening program, apart from the traditional ceremonial speeches by representatives of the church and government (represented, probably, by the leadership of the Federal Agency for Culture), includes Rimsky-Korsakov's overture "Bright Holiday" and Stravinsky's symphonic suite "Firebird", passionate works, which you have probably already heard performed by the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra, which does not negate the opportunity to have fun again.

The Easter festival in general does not so much rely on the new (although new items, and even completely unusual ones, regularly appear in its programs), but rather surprises with its scale and energy, which are based on the consistently large-scale and energetic style of the Mariinsky Theater and its director. The festival has the features of a Mariinsky benefit performance, and built into Gergiev’s transcendental schedule - for example, on the morning of April 23, Gergiev plays with the Vienna Philharmonic in the Muzikferein hall, and in the intervals between Moscow programs he is going to embrace the immensity - Khanty-Mansiysk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don. on Don, Krasnodar and even Kyiv, where not a concert is planned, but another festival.

This year the symphony program is dedicated to Shostakovich, which, of course, is unlikely to add lightness and festivity to the sound of the festival. But first of all, who said it should be easy. Secondly, the programs are laid out, as usual, effectively (Shostakovich’s music in the context of the work of his contemporaries - Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok). And thirdly, strong soloists - Anna Netrebko, Vadim Repin, Nikolai Tsnaider, Alexander Toradze - most likely diversify the auditory impressions. Despite the fact that they are also familiar to the Moscow public, both on their own and in the context of the Gergiev festivals. There are several unfamiliar names on the schedule - for example, pianists Rafal Blechacz (First Prize at the Chopin Competition) and Alexey Volodin (First Prize at the Geza Anda Competition), known to specialists but not yet presented to the general public. And at the top of the list of soloists on the current schedule is English bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, who on May 6 will take part in a concert performance of Act III of Die Walküre - not by Shostakovich, of course, but by Wagner.

One of the special projects of the festival is still dedicated to Shostakovich - on April 24, in the Great Hall of the Conservatory and Nemirovich-Danchenko, the Mariinsky Theater will show the opera “The Nose”, with which it was recently in Paris and had great success there.

The second special project is dedicated to Mozart. On May 2 and 3, in the Great Hall of the Conservatory and the Tchaikovsky Hall, respectively, the Swedish Radio Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra will perform Mozart's Coronation Mass and Requiem (adding Kraus's overture to the Olympia performance for beauty and variety).

Within the framework of the festival, as usual, there will also be large-scale choral and bell programs, and one of them - the choral one, following the symphony program, will again, as last year, spread across the regions, so that the river of music, inspired by the organizational and performing genius of Gergiev, will again swift and full-flowing.

Yulia BEDEROVA