The year of the 175th anniversary of Tchaikovsky will open the 144th season in Tchaikovsky Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre with one of the most beautiful ballets of the composer: The Nutcracker on the 3rd and 4th of September.
The first premiere of the 144th season chooses dancing direction: Swan Lake renewed by the principal ballet master Alexei Miroshnichenko will be presented to the audience with the first performances of it in November 7−11.
Programme for the season 2015/2016 will be duly appreciated even by the most demanding audience for its pioneering and versatile style.
Marc de Mauny, general manager of Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre:
— The 144th season is expected to be more dynamic than the previous seasons of the theatre. The new season will have a smooth start with subsequent development towards its culmination in June, when The Diaghilev Festival opens.
The first premiere of the season is focused on the classics but in a new interpretation. In November a new version of the Swan Lake will be presented, staged by Alexey Miroshnichenko, the principal ballet master. Choreographic texture of the ballet will be carefully preserved but the dramatic line and staging will be rethought: the audience will see familiar characters, dressed up exuberantly in a Burundian fashion style, supported by the white-stone walls of the set — romanticism and beauty of the XV century, seen through the XIX century.
The New Year celebrations will introduce a new children’s production. Tatiana Poluektova, a director, is working on the children’s concert and theatre programme in cooperation with the Big Symphony Orchestra of the theatre. The programme consists of the Children’s Album by Tchaikovsky, orchestrated by Dmitry Batin, and The Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra by Britten. These variations and fugues are written in the way to get the young people acquainted with the various sound colours of the instruments.
The new season will continue giving concert performances of the world opera masterpieces: in October there will be a concert performance of Verdi’s Aida under Teodor Currentzis, the title role performed by Zarina Abaeva. Opera Dialogues des Carmelites by Francis Poulenc, which is considered to be the most significant achievement of the composer with a powerful level of tragedy, will be performed during the Holy Week.
Programming of the symphony concerts is expected to be superb. After huge success of the concerts performed during the Diaghilev Festival, theatre’s leaders decided to restructure chamber concerts Music For Us with some of them to be performed in darkness in the House of Diaghilev, the audience lying on the cushions and carpets. And some of the Music For Us concerts will obtain a touch of glamour, being performed in the theatre’s foyer, candles and champagne included.
Another type of concerts can be described as concerts-surprises with the last minute announcement of the programme performed by a guest soloist and musicAeterna orchestra under Teodor Currentzis, when the audience is already in the theatre. In October there will be a concert with Polina Osetinskaya (piano) and in December — with Patricia Kapatchinskaja (violin).
One of the most dramatic events is scheduled for February: an international orchestra cast led by Teodor Currentzis will perform Bach’s Oratorio St. Mattheus Passion.
In April Ballet Competition Arabesque named after Ekaterina Maximova will be held in Perm welcoming participants from all over the world. And the end of June will mark the X Diaghilev Festival: the main opera premiere will open the festival. A widely acclaimed director Robert Wilson will stage Verdi’s La Traviata. This is going to be his second production in Russia after the sensational premiere of Pushkin’s Tale’s in the Theatre of Nations in Moscow. The Diaghilev Festival will present a performance Tristia by contemporary French composer Philippe Hersant, premiere of which is scheduled one month before the Festival — in May. The music is inspired by poems of prisoners from France, Japanand Russia — oppressed geniuses like Osip Mandelstam — and unknown and unrecognized authors. The closing of the anniversary Diaghilev Festival is on 30 of June 2016. Following the tradition, the Festival orchestra will perform Mahler’s symphony, this time it will be symphony no. 6. This event will mark the bright finale of the 144th season in Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre.
Teodor Currentzis, Artistic Director of PermOpera and Ballet Theatre:
— One of the main aspects of our mission is to create and protect a solid basis of music culture of Permas the Eastern edge of Europe. The result of our work has already demonstrated high position of Perm in European art. I feel that all seasons are continuously progressing and each year seems to be more complicated and interesting due to the initially set high standards. I nourish the hope that not only will the upcoming season fit the previous seasons but will also be better.
The company of the theatre will be touring throughout the season in Russia and Europe. The end of August will bring musicAeterna orchestra to the festival in Bremen with the programme consisting of works of Brahms. In September musicAeterna orchestra will participate in one of the most extraordinary productions expected – Wagner’s Das Rheingold at the international festival RUHRtriennale. In November soloists and orchestra will travel to Dortmund and St.Petersburg to perform Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy.
Musicians will go to Zurich, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Hamburg and Vienna with the symphony programme, consisting of works by Mozart and Beethoven; the ballet company, in its turn, will be demonstrating brilliant technique and talent to the audience in Dublin with Romeo and Juliette and Swan Lake. Besides, the ballet company will go to Oman and Bahrain to dance Fountain of Bakhchisarai and Giselle followed by the tour in France with the programme of Swan Lake, Don Quixote and Balanchine’s and Fokin’s ballets.