On February 5th & 6th, the Mariinsky Opera and Valery Gergiev will appear on the stage of the Alte Oper in Frankfurt am Main. We shall perform three operas (in concert form) by Russian composers. All three have their staged versions in our theater and belong to the core of our operatic repertoire.

In the afternoon concert on February 5th, we’ll perform Rodion Shchedrin’s “concert opera” The Enchanted Wanderer, which was premiered in New York in 2002 and did not receive its Russian premiere until 2007. However it has rapidly entered the Mariinsky Theatre’s repertoire, being often performed in St Petersburg and on tour (to date: in seven cities/countries). Based on a story by the 19th-century Russian author Nikolai Leskov, the opera is steeped in Russian folklore and beliefs. It tells the story of Ivan, a young man who, in the course of his travels, flogs a monk to death, is captured and tortured by the Tatars, joins a prince’s retinue as horse trainer, loves and loses (to said prince) a Gypsy woman whom he subsequently kills at her own request, and is ultimately led by her ghost to a monastery, where he takes holy orders to atone for his deeds.

In the evening concert on February 5th, we’ll perform Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov. It is Mussorgsky’s only completed opera. It tells about an important period in the history of Russia of the time of the ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar (1598 to 1605) during the Time of Troubles, and his nemesis, the False Dmitriy (reigned 1605 to 1606). The Russian-language libretto was written by the composer, and is based on the “dramatic chronicle” Boris Godunov by Alexander Pushkin. The composer created two versions — the original version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imperial Theatres, and the revised version of 1872, which received its first performance in 1874 in St Petersburg. These versions constitute two distinct ideological conceptions, not two variations of a single plan. The performance in Frankfurt will see its original, 1869 version. Boris Godunov comes closer to the status of a repertory piece than any other Russian opera.

In the evening concert on February 6th, we’ll perform Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades, a work of vast emotional scale, which brims with drama and passion, displaying the full breadth of Tchaikovsky’s genius. The Queen of Spades demonstrates an example of great literature that is further enlightened when set to great music. Pushkin’s grim tale of greed and obsession gets even darker in the Tchaikovsky’s opera. The opera had received its world premiere 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and is considered one of the most strongly connected with the Mariinsky Theatre and St Petersburg Tchaikovsky’s works.

BTW: opera The Enchanted Wanderer and other works by Rodion Shchedrin have been recorded and released on the Mariinsky Label, our own record label. The recording received a Choc Classica Award by music critics in France and was a n Opera Choice of the Month by the BBC Music Magazine in the UK.