THE NEW OPERA SHOULD BE NEW
The Kolobov New Opera Theatre of Moscow presented the plans for the 31st season.
The modern music theatre is many-sided, multigenre and intermedia – that’s the vector of the New Opera in the season 2021/22. In the forth decade of the artistic work the theatre goes beyond the opera and the Hermitage Garden and builds a new artistic reality. The what’s on of the 31th season contains new names, the repertoire – new music and the compass – new genres. The Dance Residence projects starts that will be held annually. The theatre’s range is added with symphony programmes. The direction is set out by the artistic leader, one of the most popular young musicians Valentin Uryupin who will become the Chief Conductor of the New Opera from the next season. To educate the theatre’s audience and to build up dialog with it will be Educational Cluster of the New Opera (OKNO, ‘Window’).
NEW CHIEF CONDUCTOR
From September 2021 Valentin Uryupin will become the Chief Conductor of the New Opera.
Valentin Uryupin is one of the most versatile and highly-demanded Russian musicians of the young generation. (Kommersant, 07.07.2019). He is intellectual and intelligent, modern and charismatic. He knows the music of various ages: from the Viennese classics to compositions by contemporary authors.
At age of 35 he is the artistic director and chief conductor of the Rostov Academic Symphony Orchestra, he collaborates with leading Russian and international orchestras. He was recognized after awarding prizes at the 2nd All-Russia Conducting Competition in Moscow (2015),the 5th Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition in Bamberg (2016) and having won 8th Georg Solti Conducting Competition in Frankfurt. In 2019, Valentin got the Presidential prize for contribution into the development of the national music art.
He was an assistant to Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Jurowski. For some years he was an assistant to Teodor Currentzis and a conductor at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre. He performed at the Bregenz Opera Festival. He collaborates with the best Russian and foreign orchestras.
The New Opera company faces the challenge of entering the highest international arena. In the new season Valentin Uryupin seamlessly adds the premieres and complicated symphony programmes to the theatre’s repertoire outline presenting unknown compositions to the New Opera musicians and spectators. It is a studious development program, not a quantum leap but progressive advance – such uneventfulness is very accordant to human wishes in the modern unpredictable world with its dynamic tempos and rhythms.
OPERA PREMIERES
The opera premieres of the new season are the compositions that have not been produced on Russian scenes yet.
Premiere on April 14, 2022
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die tote Stadt (The Dead City)
Music Director and Conductor – Valentin Uryupin
Stage Director – Vasily Barkhatov
Starring: Marietta – Elena Stikhina, Paul – Rolf Romei
Premiere on July 22, 2022
Giuseppe Verdi’s Stiffelio
Music Director and Conductor – Alexandru Samoilă
Stage Director – Ekaterina Odegova
Starring: Stiffelio – Sergey Polyakov, Najmiddin Mavlyanov, Lina – Elizaveta Soina, Marina Nerabeyeva
EPIPHANY FESTIVAL: REINTERPRETATION AND ENCORE
The traditional winter festival at the New Opera was thought of as a space for incarnation of new ideas and performances of rare compositions. We return the festival’s original philosophy: new compositions – new contents. At the heart of each work there is a bright female character.
January 19, 2022
Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon, opera in concert
Music Director and Conductor – Valentin Uryupin
January 23, 2022
Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone, oratorio
Conductor – Valentin Uryupin
The New Opera in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
January 21, 2022
Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot), 21 melodramas for voice and ensemble on Albert Giraud's poems
Paul Hindemith’s Die junge Magd (The Young Maid), 6 songs on Georg Trakl’s poems for contralto, flute, clarinet and string orchestra
Conductor – Philipp Chizhevsky
DANCE RESIDENCE
November 24 – December 5, 2021
The New Opera in cooperation with Mart Foundation presents the Dance Residence programme. The project will start with the Provincial Dances Theatre of the Modern Choreography of Yekaterinburg led by Tatiana Baganova. It is one of the first vanguard ensembles in post-Soviet Russia, it has become a pioneer in the genre of contemporary dance, formed and fixed this definition in the cultural space of our country. Nowadays Tatiana Baganova is the most titled choreographer of contemporary dances in Russia, a prize-winner of The Golden Mast Award (2000, 2001, 2008 and 2014) and a top-ranked artist all over the world who has won awards at the international competitions in Hannover and Paris; her productions are played in Europe and America.
SYMPHONY PROGRAMMES
The symphony programmes are a forceful line that will come through the whole season from September 2021 to June 2022. The programmes are grouped under the thematic blocks and consciously placed about the important anniversary dates. First of all, the 130th anniversary from Sergei Prokofiev’s birth is the perfect time for the reinterpretation of his creative work. Maestros Valentin Uryupin, Alexandru Samoilă, Alexander Lazarev and Nodoka Okisawa will present the composer’s symphony, ballet and cantata music. The theatre gives the opportunity to the audience to hear his rarely performed compositions, for example Concert No. 4 for piano and orchestra. Secondly, it’s the 50th anniversary from the death of Igor Stravinsky. The New Opera under the baton of Valentin Uryupin will pay the tribute to the composer’s memory performing Œdipus rex opera-oratorio. Finally, Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.3 premiered on June 9, 1902, exactly 120 years ago, will be performed under the baton of the Chief Conductor in June 2022.
The Season Opening – Symphony concert on September 14, 2021.
Conductor – Valentin Uryupin
The programme comprises:
Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans, act 1 of the opera in concert
Igor Stravinsky’s Œdipus rex, an opera-oratorio in concert
The New Opera soloists, choir and orchestra
The Opening of the Symphony cycle dedicated to the 130th anniversary from Sergei Prokofiev’s birth will take place on September 15, 2021. All seven composer’s symphonies will be played within a year.
September 15, 2021
Le pas d'acier (The Steel Step),a suite from the ballet
Concert No.4 for piano and orchestra
Symphony No. 4
Conductor – Valentin Uryupin
Soloist – Yeol Eum Son (piano)
The New Opera orchestra
December 12, 2021
Symphony No.3
Alexander Nevsky, cantata
Conductor – Alexander Lazarev
The New Opera soloists, choir and orchestra
February 12, 2022
Seven, They Are Seven, cantata
Violin Concerto No. 1
Symphony No. 5
Conductor Alexandru Samoilă
The New Opera choir and orchestra
May 14, 2022
Symphony No. 7
Conductor – Nodoka Okisawa
The New Opera orchestra
Autumn 2022
Symphony No. 1 (Classical),No. 2 and No. 6
OKNO ‘The WINDOW’ (The Educational Cluster of the New Opera)
The Educational Cluster of the New Opera is a new department in the theatre’s structure. It includes a complex of the unique educational forms that will help to make the musical theatre to part the life of different people of various age, prosperity, choices and principles.
The main task of OKNO is help everyone to find his point of contact with the musical theatre. Before the performance the spectators will have the opportunity to visit ‘Non-Lections’ – light talks about the opera between the first drink and the third call. Several times a month the theatre will gather the first theatrical amateur choir. And outside the New Opera there will be theatrical podcasts and audio walks in the Hermitage Garden.
Programmes for children will target the audience from babies to teenagers. The main accent of the children’s and family projects is perception of the theatre by means of art and play. At the International Opera Day (October 25) a large international project Opera Connect will start combining dozens of the musical theatres of the world and giving children the chance to communicate with age-mates from other places of the world and to learn the music of different countries.
The principal partner for all the programmes for teenages is the Krugozor (The Scope) multichannel media that creates the developmental online content opened for children throughout Russia.
The cooperation with schools and kindergartens will start with communication with teachers who will take special theatre workshops and get the guidelines from OKNO for giving theatre lessons.
In the new season the theatre starts the creation of the inclusive programmes and projects for children with special needs. The initial step will be a training for disability perception for theatre’s staff that was worked out by experts of the Naked Hearts Foundation.
From September till January of the next year OKNO will be a member of the children’s programme of the Tsatitsyno open-air museum as a part of the Theatrocracy. Catherine II and the Opera project. On museum’s grounds new forms of children’s events will be tested that enlarge the theatre’s permanent programme afterwards.
A large work of the Educational Cluster of the New Opera is supported by the theatre’s partner Arkady Rotenberg.