Lucerne is one of Europe’s major music festivals. It started off in 1938 as a series of 10 concerts, in the gardens facing Richard Wagner’s villa in Tribschen. Specially for this event, Arturo Toscanini gathered together an elite orchestra, which included renowned soloists, virtuoso chamber musicians, as well as musicians from L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Since then — the Festival has grown from one to 3: the Lucerne Festival in Summer, the Lucerne Festival at Easter (held from 1988), the Lucerne Festival at the Piano (held each November from 1998). Some 120 thousand people visit the Festival every year.
It has always been Festival policy to invite the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles, conductors, soloists and musicians to take part. Among the participants this year, for instance, are: Claudio Abbado and Neeme Jarvi with Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy with Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly with Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Simon Rattle with Berlin Philharmonic, Mariss Ivars Georgs Jansons with Concertgebouw Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen with London Philharmonic, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustavo Dudamel with Vienna Philharmonic, pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Helene Grimaud, Lars Vogt, Maurizio Pollini, Andras Schiff, Lang Lang, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff and others.
Since 1970, it has been traditional to devote the Festival to one theme, and this season’s theme is that of love. The following operas therefore will be heard this year at the Festival: Fidelio, Tristan und Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Pelleas et Melisande. Plus, of course, Eugene Onegin, one of the main Russian love stories. This will be the Bolshoi Theatre’s lst appearance at the Festival since 1993 when its orchestra, chorus and soloists gave performances of Eugene Onegin, Iolanta and Aleko.
The concerts are held at Lucerne’s Concert Hall, “a cathedral of music and sound” — one of the world’s best halls, famous for its phenomenal acoustics and original architecture (architect Jean Nouvel).
15.09.2010, 19.30
Eugene Onegin
concert performance
Conductor -Dmitri Jurowski
Madame Larina -Irina Rubtsova
Tatiana, her daughter — Yekaterina Shcherbachenko
Olga, her daughter — Svetlana Shilova
Filippievna, the nurse — Irina Udalova
Eugene Onegin — Vasily Ladyuk
Vladimir Lensky — Alexei Dolgov
Prince Gremin — Konstantin Gorny
Zaretsky — Valery Gilmanov
Triquet — Vyachesval Voynarovsky
Art. Lebedev Studio