Festival to commemorate 180th anniversary of Pyotr Iliych Tchaikovsky will be held from September to December on all stages of the Bolshoi Theatre. Program includes four operas, five ballets and five concert programs.
Iolanta will continue the opera part of the festival (1 and 2 December, conductors Alexander Soloviev and Anton Grishanin).
Unique point here is that like during the opera premiere in 1892, Iolanta is performed together with
The Nutcracker (in the form of symphonic suite rather than full-length ballet). This unusual performance
premiered on 28 October 2015. Iolanta was Sergei Zhenovach’s, its director’s, opera debut and he took
it with a special awe. “This story is quite poetic. First thing that I would like to avoid is basic domestic
naturalistic existence. This opera is gentle, fragile, and gullible. Once an act becomes domestic, it can
simply fall apart. Therefore, it is important that our performance is poetic. This story is not tied to any
particular time or place. Moreover, we would not like to make it neither physiological essay nor abstract
story about medieval princes and princesses. Our goal was to find a real human story through those
poetic images: what is light, what is darkness, what is blindness and enlightenment, what are two worlds
– “carnal and spiritual”. First of all, our task was to find figurative spatial expression of poetic opera
language. To create the world of darkness and world of light onstage”.
The leading parts will be performed by Ekaterina Morozova, Anna Nechaeva (Iolanta), Oleg Dolgov, Timofei Dubovitsky (Vaudemont), Denis Makarov, Mikhail Kazakov (King Rene), Andrei Potaturin, Igor Golovatenko (Robert), Elchin Azizov, Alexander Kasyanov (Ibn-Hakia).
Festival full program
Art. Lebedev Studio