28 October 2010

Don Giovanni’s Journey

There can be no better confirmation of the Bolshoi’s total integration into the world opera, dance and festival space, than its first two premieres of the present season. Both — the recent ballet and approaching opera first night — are the result of collaboration with world-famous companies and both have a French ‘accent’, so appropriate in the Year of France in Russia and of Russia in France. (We remind readers that the ballet season kicked off with a piece by the well-known choreographer Anjelin Preljocaj And Then, One Thousand Years’ Peace, uniting Bolshoi Ballet dancers and dancers from his own Company, based in Aix-en-Provence). Don Giovanni, which opens this season’s series of opera premieres also ‘comes’ from Aix-en-Provence. It is a co-production of the Bolshoi Theatre, the Festival international d’art lyrique d’ Aix-en-Provence, Teatro Real, Madrid and the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto.

An international team of singers will give form to the director’s conception. The four soloists who took part in the series of first night performances at the Aix Festival, will be coming to Moscow. These are: Kerstin Avemo (Zerlina), Colin Balzer (Don Ottavio), Anatoli Kotscherga (Commendatore) and David Bizic (in Aix he sang Mazetto, in Moscow he will be Leporello). Making their debut in the production are: Dimitris Tiliakos and Franco Pomponi (Don Giovanni), Guido Loconsolo (Leporello), Susan Gritton and Birgitte Christensen (Donna Anna), Rainer Trost (Don Ottavio), in addition to the Bolshoi Theatre soloist Yekaterina Shcherbachenko (Donna Elvira), Novosibirsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet soloist Veronika Jioeva (Donna Elvira) and Maryinsky Theatre soloist Eduard Tsanga (Mazetto) and Alina Yarovaya, a Bolshoi Youth programme member (Zerlina).
On the podium will be Bolshoi Theatre resident guest conductor Teodor Currentzis.