“Helikon-opera” performs “Mozart and Salieri. Requiem” by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov and W. A. Mozart

30.01.2013

“Helikon-opera” performs “Mozart and Salieri. Requiem” by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov and W. A. Mozart

On January 31st, February 1st and 2nd Moscow Musical Theatre under Dmitry Bertman gives series of performances of “Mozart and Salieri” by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov and W. A. Mozart.

This performance appeared in “Helikon-opera”s repertoire after Hungarian festival Bartok + in Miskolc, where the production of Mozart and Salieri’s story by Dmitry Bertman created a furore among public with its delicate and deep direction and wonderful acting.

Artistic director of “Helikon-opera” theatre Dmitry Bertman was an author of idea of creating the similar project for Russian public and entrusted this task to his deputy Ilya Ilin.

“Dmitry Bertman’s directon impressed everyone in Hungary with its delicacy”, tells the stage director of “Mozart and Salieri. Requiem” in “Helikon-opera” theatre Ilya Ilin, “I am grateful to Dmitry that he entrusted me to work upon this project in “Helikon-opera” on the basis of the festival performance. He is an Artistic Director of the project.

Musical Director – Konstantin Tchudovsky. I am happy that he will conduct this series of performances. This time spectators will see Dmitry Yankovsky and Dmitry Skorikov as Salieri, Dmitry Khromov and Andrey Palamarchuk as Mozart. The Honoured Artist of Russia Larisa Kostiuk and laureate of international contests Ekaterina Trebeleva will perform solo in “Requiem”.

We decided to combine the two works of outstanding composers in one piece and it wasn’t simple. Everybody knows that “Mozart and Salieri” classical opera includes a very brief part of “Requiem”, because the two works are totally different in style.
If “Requiem” is an absolute canonic work, then “Mozart and Salieri” by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov is rather a view and attention of a composer to Pushkin’s story. In our case we wanted to use music as a spring board with hope not to ruin the whole context and impression. This is why the whole “Requiem” became a part of the performance and became its central part.

The story is about Salieri, about his passions, his spirit, his tragedy. Every musicologist will deny the fact that Salieri could poison Mozart. He didn’t do it. That is why our performance put a question to a fact of poisoning. One of the tasks is to make the spectator to feel this story more deeply and to find an answer, what made Pushkin to write such a version. The main thing is to make a spectator to think.”