The company gathering took place on September 3rd at the Opera Centre to celebrate the opening of the new, thirteenth theatre season.
The Artistic Director, Olga Rostropovich, has warmly welcomed the students, teachers and the entire team of the Opera Centre after a period of holidays and vacations. On behalf of the Teaching Department Badri Maisuradze and Elena Savelieva have congrateulated the students with the beginning of the school year; then Deputy artistic director, Eliso Chirakadze, revealed the plans for the upcoming season. The season will open on September 19th with a Eugene Oneginperformance featuring Boris Pinkhasovich in a title role, who is the 1st prize winner of the IV International Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Singers Competition and a soloist of the Mikhailovsky Theatre. The closest major event is, with no doubt, the premiere of an opera by Leoncavallo –Pagliacci, which shall continue an established tradition to held a premiere on October 25th, the birthday of Galina Vishnevskaya. On October 30th a large concert tour of the International Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Singers Competition winners will start at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. The concert will feature the winners of different years: Anastasia Kikot’, Yulia Mazurova, Elchin Azizov, Roman Burdenko, Stanislav Mostovoy, Boris Pinkhasovich, Ruslan Rozyev and, of course, the 1stprize winner of the last competition – Irina Moreva, who’s been named by press “a true vocal diamond.”
Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre’s symphony orchestra will perform under the baton of the famous American conductor Robert Treviño. The following concerts will take place in St. – Petersburg, Irkutsk and Vladivostok.
The future plans of the Centre include: performances, gala concerts, tours to cities in Russia and abroad, participation in festivals such as the “New Wanderers” in Tomsk and International Opera Music Festival “Breath of Baikal” in Irkutsk. The international project “Young Opera Singers Assemblies”, successfully run by the Opera Centre in collaboration with academies for young performers under the major theaters around the world, will be continued in a new season too.