World premiere of Kaidanovsky’s ballet and opera War and Peace: What’s on at the Music Theatre

The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre begins its 100^th season. Artistic directors of opera and ballet, Alexander Titel and Laurent Hilaire, speak about what’s in store for the occasion.

Frau Schindler and The Devil in Love

The new season opened with the opera War and Peace (staged on 14, 15 and 16 September). An impressive team worked on the staging: a total of 500 people, including director Alexander Titel and conductor Felix Korobov. The performance has been included in the programme of the Sergei Prokofiev Festival.

“In November the opera Frau Schindler will be staged. Thomas Morse has specially scaled down the number of musicians needed to perform this work,” said Alexander Titel.

It is based on a story about the life of German manufacturer Oskar Schindler’s wife, Emilie, who helped her husband save over a thousand Jews during World War II. The opera was inspired by Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List (1994).

The Devil in Love by Alexander Vustin will premiere on 15 February. Alexander Titel will work on the performance together with conductor Vladimir Yurovsky.

The opera Othello by Giuseppe Verdi is scheduled for the end of spring, 30 May. It will be the first time director Andrei Konchalovsky works with the Music Theatre. Felix Korobov will be the conductor.

Wings of Wax and Walking Mad

Ballet Artistic Director Laurent Hilaire said that this season will see the ballets Swan Lake as well as the Wings of Wax by Jiri Kylian using their original choreography. It will be included in the programme of the One Act Ballet Night that will premiere in late October. In addition to Wings of Wax, Concerto Barocco by George Balanchine and the international premiere of a ballet by Andrei Kaidanovsky that has been kept secret so far will be performed.

The premiere of the second one act ballet programme is scheduled for next April. It will include Walking Mad by choreographer Johan Inger with music written by Arvo Pärt and Maurice Ravel, O Composite by Trisha Brown with music written by Laurie Anderson and Little Wedding by Angelin Preljocaj with music by Igor Stravinsky.

In November an original version of the ballet The Seagull by John Neumeier will be performed with music by Tchaikovsky, Skryabin, Shostakovich and Evelyn Glennie. It was first staged in 2007.

The theatre will continue the Intersection Point project, which gives young choreographers a chance to direct their ballet on an iconic stage. The fourth Intersection Point will be held in February or in March.

“We will have a lot to do. I am glad that we will continue to stage large classical ballets,” Laurent Hilaire added.

The theatre is 100 years old

This year the Music Theatre marks its 100^th anniversary. General Director Anton Getman spoke about the plan to publish the theatre’s illustrated life chronic. In addition to this, there will be themed exhibitions held during the anniversary season. Several posters advertising premieres and ballets (such as War and Peace, The Seagull, Frau Schindler, The Devil in Love and Othello) will be designed by artist Igor Gurovich.

The anniversary will be marked in December. The celebrations will include excerpts from the best productions.

Veterans and newbies

The participants of the company meeting discussed the plans for the season and congratulated those who had anniversaries, such as Assistant Director Gennady Trufanov, who has been working at the theatre for 65 years.

There are new actors and actresses at the theatre as well: Kirill Matveyev and Dmitry Nikanorov (opera company) as well as Anna Vanyukova, Yelizaveta Yegorova, Irina Zakharova, Maria Marinina, Adel Nazyrova, Miho Naotsuka, Eleonora Silverio, Alisa Sodoleva, Anastasia Tsetlina, German Borsai, Maxim Gurtovykh, Alexei Koryagin, Leonid Leontyev, Marat Nafikov and Joshua Tria (ballet company).