2025 is a year full of significant dates for all culture lovers: it is 130 years since Sergei Yesenin’s birth and 100 years since the day when his short but intense life ended. The Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre is preparing a special programme to honor the memory of one of Russia’s most stirring lyric poets. The anniversary concert will show the great poet to the audience from two perspectives.
Part I will feature music by Georgy Sviridov.
Triptych, also referred to as “the Russian orchestral chants”, recreates the nation’s spiritual image using purely instrumental means; originally, a triptych was an icon consisting of a central section and two panels. Without a single word, the composer creates a faithful picture of Holy Rus’, echoing the ideas of “Lel from Ryazan”: the epic grandeur of the homeland is framed by ascetic religious images and portraits of the simple Russian people.
Russia Now Launched song cycle is a poem consisting of 12 songs. It is composed of entire verses and excerpts from various years, forming a comprehensive reflection on the fate of the homeland and the poet’s role in it. The audience will enjoy pieces belonging to the genres of landscape lyricism and symbolism, and an allegorical chronicle of the country’s rough times, when the familiar life routine was deteriorating rapidly and dramatically. The poem rounds up with hymns glorifying Russia and looking forward to its promising future.
Part II of the concert will present a look back at Yesenin’s creative path from today. The God’s Pipe by Alexander Smelkov is a cantata for soloists, mixed chorus, and full symphony orchestra, composed specifically for the poet’s anniversary under a grant from the President of the Russian Federation. The very title God’s Pipe (an image from folk poetry) sets the main theme: a voice from above, an unavoidable fate. These selected poems form a powerful, unifying dramaturgy, directly connected to Sergei Yesenin’s spiritual quest. Thus, the 15 movements of the cantata are bound together to form a vast musical and poetic canvas about the poet’s tragic fate. Like a drop of water, it reflects the fate of the whole Russia that “now launched”. This is a journey from translucent lyricism, through rebellion and turmoil, to a premonition of the inevitable and an eternal yearning for harmony.
