Valery Gergiev rose above the pit – Kommersant

Valery Gergiev celebrated his 70th birthday and the 10th anniversary of the New Stage of the Mariinsky Theater in one evening. He was present at the celebration as a guest, watching what was happening not from the bottom up, from the orchestra pit, but from the top down – sitting in the central director’s box. Tells Vladimir Dudin.

Valery Gergiev received his most expensive toy, the New Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, which was given the working name Mariinsky-2, as a gift for his 60th birthday. As a result of many years of coordination, the ambitious architectural fantasies of Briton Norman Foster and French Dominique Perrault were preferred, unlike the pragmatic and utilitarian concept of the Canadian architectural bureau Diamond & Schmitt, who conceived the building to look like a hypermarket or even a factory from the outside (the people later dubbed it “pressure cooker”). Gergiev, tired of long-term construction, terrible red tape and the mysterious adventures of a gigantic budget, seized on this project as a lifeline and soon, finally, received a new hall for 1900 seats, in which four more chamber halls were subsequently opened.

The New Stage failed to become a symbolically significant landmark due to the absence of any memorable silhouettes and the presence of such strong competitors as Nikolsky Cathedral, the Great Choral Synagogue and the much more spectacular historical building of the Mariinsky Theater nearby. Nevertheless, it has become a place of attraction for citizens and tourists. The main auditorium has fully justified its acoustic parameters over the years, which, although yielding in the uniformity of sound distribution to the Concert Hall on the street. Pisarev, with its impeccable acoustics, created by Yasuhisa Toyota, nevertheless became an excellent alternative to the space of the old theater that had lost its freshness. The maestro received a theater with a unique transforming stage and two huge stage pockets. The operational load of the old stage (which has not yet been overhauled), if it has decreased, then the workload of all workshops and, above all, the performers – opera and ballet soloists, choir and orchestra – has increased significantly. In this only opera and ballet concern in the country, there are much more daily “sessions” – performances and concerts – than in any other cinema. Many opera and ballet performances moved to the New Stage from the old stage, such as Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina. But more than fifty new productions appeared there, including Berlioz’s The Troyens and Benvenuto Cellini, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden and The Golden Cockerel, Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and Sicilian Vespers, Puccini’s The Girl from the West .

However, despite all this, a sad trend has been the infringement of directing, the reduction of its artistic level to unreflected amateur illustrativeness. The Mariinsky II began with the grandiose Les Troyens by Berlioz in an elegantly epic production by Yannis Kokkos and War and Peace by Prokofiev in Graham Vick’s radical, very lively and topical challenge production (both performances in 2014). Today, Verdi’s fresh Nabucco, which premiered in March, looks like a blatantly vapid and helpless spectacle of times of heavy stagnation.

And the performance level of many performances, despite the enormous density of the schedule in recent seasons, more and more often leaves much to be desired, which was shown even by the anniversary concert. Two conductors who succeeded each other at the podium, Gurgen Petrosyan and Arseniy Shuplyakov (by the way, both laureates of relatively recent Russian conducting competitions) led the orchestral accompaniment with the mood of a tortured obligatory, with such non-holiday lethargy and with so many rough edges and unrehearsed that bewilderment did not disappear from beginning to end. But these two colleagues of the Mariinsky chef, as it were, were supposed to show “hope for the new generation.” In general, this concert, under other historical circumstances, should have consisted of many other “ingredients”. Here, this evening, Domingo could conduct (and sing), as well as other foreign colleagues of Gergiev; could and would even consider it their sacred duty to perform in front of their favorite conductor, who made their career, Anna Netrebko and Elena Stikhina – yes, many would rush to this part of the world, just to be close to the hero of the day. But everything has changed beyond recognition.

Although there was no shortage of names in the program. The only tenor prime minister, Sergei Skorokhodov, promised to win Calaf’s aria from Puccini’s Turandot. Two world-famous mezzo-sopranos at once appeared before the eyes of the maestro that evening: Ekaterina Semenchuk (who came as a surprise because she was not announced) sang Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen, and Yulia Matochkina (for whom Gergiev personally supported at the Tchaikovsky Competition) – unexpectedly pop-incendiary “Granada” Lara. The lyric-dramatic soprano Tatyana Serzhan, whom Gergiev managed to make a soloist of the Mariinsky Theater in time, told in Adriana Lecouvrere’s aria “Io son l’umile ancella” from the opera of the same name by Chilea that she, like her heroine, “is only a humble servant of the creative genius “. And her colleague in the role Khibla Gerzmava preferred Silva’s exit aria from Kalman’s “Queen of Csardas” that her “native land is in the mountains”, where “edelweiss timidly blooms and snow and ice sparkle.”

Baritone Alexei Markov also appeared in the non-opera genre, which knocked down the official status of the event, with an aria by Kalmanov’s Mr. X about “again where the sea of ​​​​lights is.” However, the verses of the brave Escamillo, performed by bass Ildar Abdrazakov, also rather supported the non-academic mood. Although emphatically festive – as in the case of Robert’s verses about his incomparable Matilda from Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, which were sung by baritone Roman Burdenko, who is now making a resounding career in Europe. A note of deep melancholy and sadness was brought in rather by ballet dancers: Oksana Skorik in The Dying Swan and Diana Vishneva with Konstantin Zverev in Preljocaj’s “Park” set to the music of the Sicilian from Mozart’s 23rd concerto. And pianist Denis Matsuev distinguished himself at the very beginning of the concert by hinting at the sadness of the situation in Grieg’s trademark jazz improvisation on themes from Peer Gynt: in his song, Solveig is waiting and will not wait for his hero, and in The Cave of the Mountain King, the musician, following the composer, recalled about how scary it is to be surrounded by wild and bloodthirsty trolls.