«Helikon» at the walls of the monastery

For the third time with the great success was held the festival “Russian opera at the walls of the monastery”.
The project, organized under the aegis of the governor's program “Our Moscow region” and with the blessing of the Metropolitan Krutitsky and Kolomna Yuvenaly, is carried out in cooperation with the Moscow Musical Theater "Helikon-Opera". This year the festival is held in two cities, the pearls of Moscow region - Serpukhov and Kolomna.
The festival is under the patronage of the Russian Orthodox Church and is a vivid example of the productive cooperation of secular authorities, spiritual authorities and people of creativity. To the grateful Moscow Region audience were presented the new show of “Helikon-opera” – the opera by S. Rachmaninoff “Aleko” and the concert of masterpieces of Russian opera.
The festival started on the 4^th of June in Serpukhov, where in the Prinar park near to the Vysotsky monastery gathered about 5 thousand locals. With the greeting turned the head of the Serpukhov city district Dmitry Zharikov, the advisor to the Governor of the Moscow Region in Culture, the advisor to the Governor of the Moscow Region in culture Narmin Shiralieva and His Grace Bishop Roman, Bishop of Serpukhov, who gave the parting words to the festival and his participants. And in Kolomna, before the beginning of the show, the audience filled the Cathedral Square at the walls of the Kolomna Kremlin, was greeted by the head of the Kolomna city district Denis Lebedev, , the advisor to the Governor of the Moscow Region in culture Narmin Shiralieva and the Lord Petr, Bishop of Lukhovitsky, vicar of the Moscow diocese.
The invitations to the show for citizens of Kolomna were for free, that evening about 2 thousand people gathered at the Cathedral Square.
The weather contributed its own adjustments to the scenario – in Kolomna and Serpukhov the show was interrupted by the rain. But the heliconians with honor came out of this trial. In some moments, orchestra and maestro Valery Kirianov had to play under the umbrellas that the colleagues held over musicians.
For this luxurious present to the local citizens thanks to: Petr Morozov – Aleko, Olga Shcheglova – Zemfira, Ivan Volkov -  the young gypsy, the Honoured Artist of Russia Mikhail Guzhov - the old gypsy, the Honoured Artist of Russia Larisa Kostiuk - the old gypsy woman. Choir under Evgeny Ilyin’s control was also magnificent. Igor Morozov and Yulia Shcherbakova also took part in the concert.
Both days the people scanned “Bravo” for a long time! Together with the heliconians were the friends of our theatre: TV presenter Arina Sharapova, pianist Basina Shulman, journalist and director Mikhail Kunitsyn. Their opinions were unanimous: "Terrific! Full of delight! ".
Thanks a lot to our phenomenal soloists, choir, orchestra, conductor Valery Kirianov, all technical services, especially to Maxim Losev-Demidov and to our perfect administrators: Ivan Gorbulich (who organized the tour to Serpukhov) and to Vasily Frolov (responsible for the event in Kolomna).
We are ending the season with the bright, filled with great events and wonderful emotions.