02 November 2011

Bolshoi Theatre presents first premiere on its refurbished Main Stage

Bolshoi Theatre presents first premiere on its refurbished Main Stage

Ruslan and Lyudmila will be the first premiere to take place on the refurbished, historic Bolshoi Theatre Main Stage. And this outstanding opera with its truly epic scale is ideally suited to the opening of the Theatre. One of the high points in the Russian operatic repertoire, it is an integral part of Bolshoi Theatre history. On the Theatre's Main stage there have been over 700 performances in 9 different productions (not counting revivals!) of this opera. Its Bolshoi Theatre debut was 165 years ago. Members of the Ruslan and Lyudmila production teams have included the following illustrious figures - director Boris Pokrovsky, conductors Vyacheslav Suk, Nikolai Golovanov, Alexander Melik-Pashaev, scenographers Konstantin Korovin, Alexander Golovin, Vladimir Dmitriev…

And today this list is continued by Bolshoi guest conductor in residence Vladimir Jurowski and director and scenographer Dmitri Tcherniakov.

The new production promises to live up to the historic occasion which will precede it - the ceremonial opening of the Bolshoi Theatre Main Stage. It 'records', as it were, former productions of Ruslan and Lyudmila at the Bolshoi. But at its core is an absolutely authentic psychological account of the ordeal of love, and of faithfulness and strength of spirit. The spectator will find not one enigmatic twist, attributable solely to magic, in the storyline. At one and the same time, Tcherniakov steeps the opera in the space of its myth and frees it of its shackles, presenting the story in an exceptionally lively and 'true-to-life' way.

Maestro Vladimir Yurovsky, together with his assistants Ralf Sochaczewsky and Alexei Bogorad, is responsible for the musical side of the production. The opera which, as is well known, is fairly lengthy, will be presented in slightly cut form by comparison to the original score (and this has been a tradition ever since its first staging), but the musical structure will in no way suffer: all the musical numbers are preserved, the cuts being limited to repeats of music within the form.

The first night performances are on 2, 3, 5, 6, 8-10 November.