05.05.2021

Easter Concert at the Primorsky Stage during the XX Jubilee Moscow Easter Festival

On May 6, 2021 the traditional Easter Gala Concert will be given at the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre during the XX Moscow Easter Festival. The Chorus of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre and soloists such as Laura Bustamante (mezzo-soprano), Alexei Smirnov (tenor), Irina Kolodyazhnaya (mezzo-soprano), and Vyacheslav Vasilyev (baritone) will take part in the Concert. Larisa Shveikovskaya and Anna Pipia will act as Chorus Masters. The Mariinsky Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage will be under the baton of Pavel Smelkov, Principal Conductor.

The Combined Chorus of the Vladivostok Eparchy will perform with chanters such as Priest Konstantin Talko, Deacon Andrian Chunchuk, Elena Levada, Olga Grigorieva, Ekaterina Babina, and Ekaterina Melnikova. In Part I of the Concert compositions by Vasily Borisenko, Nikolai Tolstyakov, Mikhail Rechkunov, Boris Ledkovsky, Priest Nikolai Knignitsky, Alexei Turenkov, Pavel Chesnokov, Dmitry Bortnyansky, Giuseppe Sarti, Mikhail Rechkunov, Deacon Sergiy Trubachev, Alexander Nikolsky, Archdeacon Roman (Tamberg), and Hegumen Theophanes (Ziborov) will be performed. In Part II some Russian classic compositions will be performed. They include works by Alexander Smelkov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Mikhail Glinka.

In 2021 the Moscow Easter Festival is going to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The Moscow Easter Festival was first held on the initiative of Valery Gergiev, Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, in Moscow from May 5, 2002 to May 19, 2002. The initial season of the Festival was acclaimed by reviewers as one of the greatest music projects of that year. In 2003 the Festival was supported by President Vladimir Putin and became all-Russian event gathering outstanding performers from all over the world and campanologists. The pool of participants was enlarged to include church choruses in addition to professional creative teams.

The legendary highlight of the II Moscow Easter Festival was Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov staged by Andrei Moguchy and Mikhail Pandzhavidze at the Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin. It was raining very hard, and the wind was blowing coldly, and on the stage instead of strings there was only a piano that the Concert Mistress Irina Soboleva, Honored Artist of Russia, was playing, and soloists were singing perfectly despite the rain-slicked wooden stage. That day the Mariinsky Theatre did the impossible.

The XX Jubilee Moscow Easter Festival is to be held from April 22, 2021 to May 17, 2021 with the support of the Moscow Government and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and with the blessing from His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia. Nowadays it is one of the most expectable and greatest events in the Russian cultural life. Spectators enjoy the Festival wide jubilee program including its symphonic, chorus, bell-ringing and charitable parts which unite the best folk traditions, national colors and great variety of Russian nature. As well as in previous years, the Festival is going to reaffirm its status of the world musical event. It keeps its main principles including charitable and educational activities and patriotism.

The Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre has been actively involved in the events of the Moscow Easter Festival since 2016.

In 2016 the XV Moscow Easter Festival was dedicated to the 125th anniversary of Sergei Prokofiev’s birth. On the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre a chamber music program was presented as well as a large Easter Concert entitled “Sacred Celebration”. The Vladivostok audience heard brightly gifted performers from the Academy of Young Opera Signers of the Mariinsky Theatre and the Combined Choir of the Primorsky Metropolitanate.

In 2017 three concerts were given at the Primorsky Stage during the XVI Moscow Easter Festival dedicated to the 135th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky’s birth. The Combined Choir of the Primorsky Metropolitanate coordinated by Lyudmila Makarenko gave a concert. And for the first time the Primorsky Stage took part in the Moscow Easter Festival Choral Program. The Mariinsky Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage conducted by Pavel Smelkov gave a charity concert in the Knyaze-Volkonsky Garrison (Khabarovsk Region). As a part of the Festival’s Symphonic Program, the Primorsky Stage hosted performances by the South Korean virtuoso pianist Seong-Jin Cho, the First Prize and the Gold Medal winner at the Chopin International Piano Competition, together with the Mariinsky Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage under the baton of a very talented Singaporean conductor Darrell Ang.

In 2018 the Primorsky Stage appeared in Vladivostok and Ussuriysk during the XVII Moscow Easter Festival. In the run-up to the Festival a broadcast of a concert performance of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta being on stage of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (Moscow) and featuring the Mariinsky Opera soloists, Chorus and Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev, was transmitted to the Chamber Hall of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. The choruses of the Cathedral of Theotokos of Port Arthur Icon, the Pokrovsky Cathedral Church, the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God, the Cathedral Church of Saint Nicholas, and the Cathedral of Holy Hierarch Nicholas in Ussuriysk were Far East participants of the Festival Choral Program.

In 2019, during the XVIII Moscow Easter Festival, the Primorsky Stage hosted performances of the Combined Chorus of the Vladivostok and Primorsky Metropolitanates and the Mariinsky Chorus and Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage under the baton of Waleriy Trubin-Leonoff.

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