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| | Arts Calendar / November 6 / Opera |
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 Opera in two acts to music by Konstantin Boyarsky. 150 min (with one intermission). Conductor: Jan Latham-Koenig. Conductor: Valery Kritskov. Stage Director: Igor Ushakov. Sung in English with Russian surtitles. The Novaya Opera presents the premiere of the opera Pushkin, which tells the story of two dominant men the nation’s Poet and the nation’s Tsar. A relationship that starts with mutual admiration and mutual need. The authors of the opera, librettist Marita Phillips and composer Konstantin Boyarsky, live and work in Great Britain, but have close bonds with Russian culture. Violist, violinist and composer Konstantin Boyarsky was born and spent his childhood in Russia. He attended the Music School affiliated to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory where he studied with Professor Inna Gauhman. At present Konstantin is working in London as one of the Principal Violists of the Royal Opera House and also does a lot of composing. He has a number of instrumental compositions and arrangements for viola and other instruments as well as two ballets, Sleepers and Children of War, and the opera Pushkin. In 2010, Konstantin was named "UK's Best Young Classical Composer" by the international web-magazine www.suite101.com. Marita Phillips is a great-great-great-granddaughter of the three main characters of the opera: Alexander Pushkin, his wife Natalya and Tsar Nicolas I. Marita trained in acting and ballet before performing a one-woman show worldwide. She founded the London Mime Centre with Adam Darius. She was Chairman of the British Pushkin Bicentennial Committee which was involved in over 200 events in the UK in 1999. She wrote the children’s novel e Dream Dealer and writes lyrics for songs and musicals.
Novaya Opera Theatre  |
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 Opera in four acts by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. 210 min (with one interval). Libretto by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Ilya Tyumenev based on Lev Mey’s play of the same name. Music Director: Gennadi Rozhdestvensky. Stage Director: Julia Pevzner. Sung in Russian with English subtitles. Martha, the daughter of the Novgorod merchant Sobakin, is to marry the boyar Likov; but Gryaznoi, one of Ivan the Terrible's bodyguard, has sworn that she shall be his, and obtains from Bomely, the Tsar's doctor, a potion with which he intends to destroy her memory. His discarded mistress Lyuba, aided by Bomely, substitutes another concoction that is to mar her beauty. This Martha drinks. Meantime, in accordance with a royal custom, Ivan the Terrible has been endeavoring unseen to select a bride. His choice falls upon Martha. When she hears from Gryaznoi that Likov, her betrothed, has been executed for attempting to poison her, she loses her reason. Lyuba, confessing to her act, is stabbed by Gryaznoi, who gives himself up to justice.
Bolshoi Theater |
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