Mozart and Salieri. Requiem


PHOTOALBUM

Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Head of Production: Dmitry Bertman
Stage Director: Ilya Ilyin
Music Director: Constantin Chudovsky
Conductor: Evgeny Ilyin
Set and Costumes Designers: Igor Nezhny and Tatiana Tulubyeva
Light Designer: Denis Enyukov
 

Premiere  –  September 29, 2010
Language of performance – ​ Latin, Russian




Mozart's music can cure many diseases. And it is not an artistic exaggeration, but the results of medical experiments having been carried out for centuries. However, a genius capable of giving happiness and health to millions of people himself became a victim of the envy of a cruel poisoner... Pushkin believed in this legend and immortalized the name of the alleged murderer - composer Antonio Salieri - in one of his "little tragedies". It seems that Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov had the same point of view.

"Mozart and Salieri. Requiem" was the first opera of the composer based not on a Slavic plot and this fact alone makes the opera an experiment. In addition, the author set a goal to develop new, "plastic" melodic style, purely vocal. It was based on the “little tragedy” of Pushkin with minor cuts. A fragment from Mozart's Requiem and Zerlina's aria from «Don Giovanni» is cited in the score.

The performance offers its spectators to enjoy this Mozart's masterpiece entirely: Requiem sounds right after the opera of Rimsky-Korsakov, completing the old dispute about genius and villainy.

HISTORY

Since “Mozart and Salieri” — a “little tragedy” by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin appeared, the hypothesis of the Salieri’s guilty has been hardened much. Nikolay Andreevich Rimski-Korsakov shares this point of view in his opera. The idea to decline the services of librettists and to take original Pushkin’s texts as libretto belongs to Aleksandr Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky. He first implemented it in the ballet opera “Triumph of Bacchus”, revived in “Rusalka” (with some deviations) and brought to perfection in “The Stone Guest”. Rimski-Korsakov was the composer, who orchestrated “The Stone Guest” after the death of Dargomyzhsky. In 1897–1902 he returned to “The Stone Guest” and created a new edition, having significantly changed not only his own orchestration, but also the original music.

Rimski-Korsakov in his own manner retried he Dargomyzhsky’s experience in “Mozart and Salieri”. It is his first opera based not on the Slavic plot, that’s why it may be considered as an experiment. Besides, in “Mozart and Salieri” the composer set the goal to work out a new, “figurative” melodic style, purely vocal in itself. It is based on a “little tragedy” by Pushkin with insignificant cuts. The score contains citations of the fragments from “Requiem” and the aria of Zerlina from “Don Giovanni” by Mozart. There are two bars from “Tarare” by Salieri in the Mozart’s speech (but only two!). Rimski-Korsakov worked on the opera in 1897 and by autumn he had shown the novelty to his close friends, accompanied by fortepiano. Among the first performers of “Mozart and Salieri” there were Fyodor Chaliapin and Sergey Rachmaninoff.

The author was afraid for the destiny of his composition, deprived of any theatrical effects on the big stage, beyond the first private performances. He was also afraid for the “outdated” orchestration without any usual décor. The first production of “Mozart and Salieri” was premiered on 6 (18) November 1898 on the stage of the Mamontov’s Private Russian Opera in Moscow.

SUMMARY
Scene 1

A Room in the House of Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri has ascended to the climax of glory. He is a respected Master of the King’s Music; his compositions are popular in Vienne and out of the city. But he feels depressed since Mozart has appeared in his life — six years younger, less successful but a real genius. There is a deep tragedy hiding behind the external friendship of these two people: Salieri envies Mozart, while Mozart suspects him to hold back Mozart’s career at court. One day Mozart comes uninvited with a blind fiddler to play a joke on his respectable colleague. Hardly has Salieri revolted as Mozart strikes him with a genius improvisation. 

The friends decide to have a dinner together. Salieri has been rattled. He recalls of the poison he has been carrying around for eighteen years — “The Gift of Isaure’”.

Scene 2
A Separate Room in a Tavern
At the table Mozart is talking about the Requiem he is working on and about the strange wicked circumstances under which it was ordered. Salieri discreetly adds the poison into his glass. Mozart is proposing a toast “for the sincere union… of the two sons of harmony”. Having drunk his wine, Mozart shows Salieri the manuscript of the Requiem. Amazed, Saliery is listening to the music and can’t tear himself away from the Great Masterpiece, living out each act of it. The Requiem is over. Mozart passes away…

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