The opening of the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre in Moscow in 2002 can justly be regarded as a unique event in the modern history of opera in Russia. Galina Vishnevskaya’s outstanding talent and wealth of experience served to guarantee the Centre’s high level of professionalism and its success as a new type of educational institution.
The Centre offers an internship to singers with professional training from both Russia and abroad. The Centre prepares them to assume leading roles in the operatic repertoire. Working with them are leading specialists in voice training, as well as accompanists, conductors, stage directors and teachers of acting, dance and foreign languages of the highest professional caliber. The Centre’s founder and artistic director, Galina Vishnevskaya, shared her enormous wealth of experience with the students on daily basis. Master classes and workshops have been held by Mstislav Rostropovich and Boris Pokrovsky, Peter Stein and Zubin Mehta, Teresa Berganza and Riccardo Muti, Mirella Freni and Placido Domingo. Following their studies at the Centre, many of its students become soloists of Moscow’s major theaters and glorify the Russian school of opera at renowned European venues.
Within the past twelve years of its existence the Opera Centre has gained a special place in the cultural landscape of Moscow and of Russia as a whole. Eleven opera productions have been staged and numerous concerts, highly appreciated by both audience and critics, have been held. Besides appearances on its own stage, the Centre’s operatic troupe actively tours in Russia and abroad (Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Italy, Macedonia, France, Mexico, Czech Republic, South Africa).
The organization of international projects has been one of the most important activities of the Centre; among them are: The Italian Seasons in Russia, ‘Operalia’, the world opera competition, directed by Placido Domingo in Moscow, Galina Vishnevskaya International Opera Singers Competition, ‘Young Opera Singers Assemblies’.
The activity of the Centre could not, of course, be so intensive or multifaceted without broad-based support, in the first instance, from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Government of the City of Moscow and the Moscow City Department of Culture.
The principal task of the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre is to perpetuate Russia’s great operatic traditions and to cause Russian opera to be perceived anew.