Helikon-Opera tour to Khanty-Mansiysk

12.05.2008

Helikon-Opera tour to Khanty-Mansiysk

From the 1st to 10th of May Helikon-Opera was touring Yugra land - Khanty-Mansiysk (Russia) - in the context of "Siberian Parnas" festival. A long-standing friendship connects the theatre and this unique city.

Two years ago Helikon’s “Nabucco” performance took place here for the first time, on stage of concert-theatrical centre “Yugra-classic”, in the context of Mariinsky theatre tour. This production has been performed in Mariinsky theatre with great success for three seasons already. Since then the concerts of “Helikon-Opera” soloists, master-classes of workers of Helikon’s production department have been held here and the preparation for the full-scaled tour – “Siberian Parnas” festival - has been taking place. On the 1st of May the tour group of 150 people arrived to Khanty-Mansiysk.

The originality of Yugra is that the authorities here, headed by the governor Alexander Philipenko, is taking a good care about the level of citizens’ living, about their upbringing and cultural education. For the last 14 years Khanty-Mansiysk turned from barrack village into a modern city with red-brick houses, restored churches, good roads, trade centers, well-equipped museums and first class hotels one of which was occupied by Helikon artists.

Undoubtedly, one of the brightest achievements of city’s development and building is the concert-theatrical centre Yugra-Classic. The walls of its lounge are decorated with Venetian plaster and authentic onyx; it consists of three perfect concert halls, one of which contains a unique organ, specially manufactured for Yugra in Germany (its keys are finished with natural mammoth’s bone) and one of the three Fazioli pianos which Russia has. There is also a transformer hall for drama performances. The third is the Big hall for 1000 seats, the stage of which is equipped with modern machinery and there are special acoustic seats in the hall. Yugra-Classic is built as the big Tour house, where for the last three years only super stars have been performing. Among them are Valery Gergiev with Mariinsky theatre, Gidon Kremer with “Kremerata Baltica”, Yuri Temirkanov with Academic symphonic orchestra of St.-Petersburg Philharmonic, Peter Fomenko’s Theatre, Moscow Artistic Academic Theatre named after A. Chekhov, Lev Dodin with Academic Small drama Theatre – Theatre of Europe and Boris Eifmann’s St.-Petersburg’s State Academic theatre of ballet.

“Helikon-Opera” presented 5 performances to Yugra’s audience – “Siberia” by U. Giordano, “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” by G. Rossini, “The Tsar’s Bride” by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, “Gershwin-Gala” by G. Gershwin and “Kaffeekantate” by J. S. Bach. It is necessary to note that large scale opera productions were performed in Khanty-Mansiysk for the first time ever. The last projects were either concerts or drama and ballet. The house was full. Besides Khanty-Mansiysk citizens the inhabitants of Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk, Nefteyugansk, Tiumen and some other nearest cities arrived to see the performances. The public although wasn’t very experienced in opera, but was very grateful. The loud ovation followed each scene, in the end of the performances hall was applauding upright. At “Siberia” performance, which opened the tour, audience was enchantedly watching the events on stage, bursting with applause after each scene of Stephanie (Natalia Zagorinskaya), Vassily (Dmitry Ponomarev) and Glebov (Andrey Vylegzhanin). In “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” at Figaro’s first aria Andrey Vylegzhanin received applauding during his singing, the public laughed after each Rosina’s (Karina Grigoryan), Bartolo (Dmitry Ovchinnikov), Bertha (Marina Karpechenko) joke. Women cried after “The Tsar’s Bride”, a group of spectators was scanning “Come again!”, and at “Gershwin-Gala”, which was visited by the governor Alexander Philipenko, public was scanning after each number. Conductors People’s Artist of Russia Eugene Brazhnik, Honoured Artist of Russia Denis Kirpanev and Konstantin Chudovsky, as well as People’s Artist of Russia Natalia Zagorinskaya, Honoured Artists of Russia Larisa Kostiuk, Sergey Toptygin, Marina Karpechenko, Ekaterina Oblezova, Andrey Vylegzhanin, Nikolay Dorozhkin, soloists Dmitry Ponomarev, Mikhail Guzhov, Vladimir Bolotin, Marina Kalinina, Mikhail Seryshev, Karina Grigoryan, Alexey Tikhomirov, Dmitry Ovchinnikov, Alexey Dedov, Elena Semenova, Dmitry Skorikov, Yuri Ustiugov, Maria Maskhulia, Maria Lobasheva, Oles Paritsky, Dmitry Kalin, Ilya Ilin, Mikhail Laverov, Eugene Ilin, Natalia Arkhipova – everybody received its part of welcome from Yugra spectators.

Helikon people lived in “Yugra valley”. This perfect four stars wellness hotel is situated in three kilometers from the city, in taiga on the bank of picturesque river. Besides good rooms of European level many artists could try the unique SPA-procedures. To name just a few: a wonderful massage by cedar twigs, oxygen capsule…   And a wonderful sauna yard, where you could bathe in the swimming pool with thermal water under open taiga sky! The mass recovery in Helikon style was taking place in “Yugra valley” when there were no performances. Helikon people were bathing in swimming pools, playing tennis, shooting from arbalests, visiting cosmetology.

The leadership of concert-theatrical centre “Yugra-Classic”, organizers of the tour, took a good care about the leisure time of the tour group. The second day after arrival to Khanty-Mansiysk the excursion around the city was made, including a visit to a picture gallery. On the 4th of May the festive dinner “Devotion to Siberians” took place near the hotel. After open air contests Helikon people were invited to taste different meals of Siberian cuisine.

On the 9th of May in honour of the Victory Day and on the occasion of the end of the tour the transformer hall of “Yugra-Classic” turned into a field kitchen. All artists could try boiled potatoes in their skin and drink “100 front grams”. After minute’s silence in remembrance of war, communal toasts of Helikon-Opera’s Artistic Director Dmitry Bertman and Director-General of “Yugra-Classic” Irina Tkachenko and war songs, an organ concert was specially organized for Helikon people, so that everybody could hear the perfect sound of this instrument. Here the concertmaster of the theatre Vladimir Rodionov received a rare possibility to test the unique Fazioli grand piano. He performed the works of Chopin for his colleagues.

Irina Tkachenko, Eugene Brazhnik, Dmitry Bertman and Liudmila Zhumayeva
Vladimir Rodionov is testing a unique Fazioli grand piano       Festive salut

Returning to the hotel on the eve of their departure to Moscow artists saw a festive salute in Khanty-Mansiysk sky. The salute was dated to Victory Day, but the Helikon people felt themselves winners! The successful tour was the beginning of the future joint creative projects.

WATCH THE PHOTOS OF THE TOUR...