On October 16, soloists of the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre took part in a performance at the Cite de la Musique in Paris of a program entitled “Unknown Shostakovich,” consisting of two of the great composer’s unfinished operas, The Gamblers and The Great Lightning. Taking place under the auspices of The Year of Russia in France, this unique program brought together artists from both Russia and France: Opera Centre soloists Oleg Dolgov, Konstantin Brzhinsky, Ruslan Roziyev, Maxim Sazhin, Yury Zaltsman and Pavel Sorokin, the Symphony Orchestra of the Paris Conservatory, conductors Dmitry Jurowsky and Yaroslav Tkalenko, Franco-Russian director Michele Poli and costume designer Andrei Klimov.
The program, initiated by Jean-Louis Gavatorte, curator of classical and contemporary music of Culturesfrance, and Emmanuel Hondre, director of the Cite de la Musique, aroused considerable interest among the French musical public. The Paris concert, conducted by Dmitry Jurowsky, and a repeat performance in the ancient city of Besancon, conducted by Yaroslav Tkalenko, proved enormously successful and played to full houses. Among the honored guests at the Paris concert were the composer’s widow, Irina Shostakovich, and conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, both of whom praised the artistry and the high professional level of the Opera Centre’s soloists.
The program was subsequently repeated in Russia, on October 22 in Moscow, at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, and on October 24 in Perm, at the Great Hall of the Perm Regional Philharmonic.