Opera Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart "Le Nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro") opera in concert World famous Mariinsky Ballet and Opera - established 1783
Running time: 3 hours 15 minutes
Schedule for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart "Le Nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro") opera in concert 2022
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Principal Chorus Master: Andrei Petrenko Musical Director: Maestro Valery Gergiev Musical Preparation: Marina Mishuk Stage Director: Alexander Petrov Lighting Designer: Eugene Ganzburg Set Designer: Elena Orlova
Orchestra: Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra
World premiere: 1 May 1786, Burgtheater, Vienna
Premiere of this production: 1 May 2009, Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, Russia
opera buffa in four acts Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Peter Tchaikovsky, after the comedy by
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Performed in Russian
Stage Director: Alexander Petrov
•World premiere: 1 May 1786,
Burgtheater, Vienna; •Premiere of this production: 1 May 2009, Mariinsky
Theatre, St Petersburg
Running time: 3 hours 20 minutes The Performance has one
intermission
Stage Director Alexander Petrov is a man of cheerful, positive
disposition. He has refrained from imbuing this opera buffa with, for example,
psychoanalytical motifs of a complete travesty, as many “fashionable” colleagues
would have done in his place, he has made it a simple though inventive
production, meticulously but with great joy.
Vedomosti |
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The lively and witty production staged by Alexander Petrov lent
itself to being seen “in one breath” and drew a warm response from the audience.
The merry, classical production of the opera brings to mind all Salzburg
performances together (there are “quotations” now from one, now from another).
While, at the same time, this quoting from acclaimed productions appears
appropriate and unobtrusive. And the performers of the leading roles feel
comfortable in the labyrinth of sets and create convincing images.
Nevskoe
vremya |
«I have just returned from the Opйra Comique, where I heard Le nozze
di Figaro for the second time, and if they perform it again, then I will go
again, and again and again! God, how divinely goodthe music
is…» P. I. Tchaikovsky
In his Memoirs, librettist and dramatist Lorenzo da Ponte, telling
of his meetings and talks with Mozart, recalled that it was Mozart who offered
him work on a new opera after de Beaumarchaisґ scandalously sensational comedy
La folle journйe, ou Le Mariage de Figaro. De Beaumarchaisґ play was
staged in Paris in 1784 and proved a terrific success; however, soon staging it
became banned everywhere. Rehearsals of Le Marriage de Figaro in the
German translation of Emanuel Schikaneder were also stopped in Vienna. Mozart
and da Ponte worked on the opera in secret, telling no-one. When the draught was
complete, Lorenzo da Ponte set off to see the Emperor and, having given free
reign to the eloquence he controlled to perfection, he convinced Josef II that
the opera was utterly safe from a political viewpoint, and that the entire
content concerned the family life of a count and countess, and the music filled
with various positive qualities. Having listened to some fragments from Le
nozze di Figaro (as the opera was entitled), the Emperor permitted
rehearsals to begin in Vienna at the Burgtheater. At the first meeting between
Mozart and the orchestra and the singers, after bass Francesco Benucciґs
performance of Figaroґs aria «Non piщ andrai, farfallone amoroso…», all vied
with each other to cry «Bravo, bravo, maestro!» At other rehearsals the same
inspiration was retained, the artistes and musicians constantly calling out
«Long live the great Mozart!» It was with no less enthusiasm that the premiere
was met, conducted by the composer on 1 May 1786. In its first year, the number
of performances of Le nozze di Figaro had it rivalling popular Italian
operas, which at that time was an unheard of event. However, Mozartґs enemies
somehow succeeded in getting the opera dropped from the repertoire. The
subsequent Prague production of the opera in December 1786, seven months after
the Viennese premiere, proved a staggering success. It was at that moment that
the eternal life of Le nozze di Figaro began. The opera has been staged
by almost every major music theatre in the world. In Russia, it was first
performed in 1815 by the German Opera Company in St Petersburg. In Russian
(apropos, in the timeless translation by the great Russian composer Pyotr
Tchaikovsky, who adored this work) the opera was first performed in Moscow on 5
May 1876 by students from the Conservatoire. In St Petersburg Le nozze
di Figaro was first performed at the Mariinsky Theatre on 25 September
1901 in a staging by Osip Palechek (V. Kastorsky as Almaviva,
M. Cherkasskaya as the Countess, M. Mikhailova as Susanna,
D. Bukhtoyarov as Figaro, S. Gladkaya as Cherubino and N. Fride
as Marcellina). The next time that Le nozze di Figaro was performed at
the Mariinsky Theatre was almost one hundred years later – on 5 April
1994
Schedule for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart "Le Nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro") opera in concert 2022
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