Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre concluded this season on June 26th with a traditional gala concert. Graduates-2018 stepped the stage to perform the most colorful vocal acts to show the achieved through the years of study mastery and all the beauty of the best young Russian opera voices.
The Opera Centre’s orchestra under the baton of conductor Yaroslav Tkalenko opened the gala night with a Polonaise from Eugene Onegin opera by Tchaikovsky. Ekaterina Vlasova, Valeria Zelenskaya, Anna Zolotova, Evgenia Krasilova, Natalia Petrova, Dmitry Pimenov, Anna Sergeeva, Daria Tarasenko and Daria Turbina have performed arias and scenes from operas by Verdi, Gounod, Massenet, Puccini, Saint-Saëns, Cilea, Tchaikovsky and Shchedrin. Zarina Agaragimova and Alexandra Nikitina shone in hitting acts from Kalman’s operettas.
The festive culmination of the night was the ceremony of handing the official certificates on the completion of education at the Opera Centre. Olga Rostropovich, the Centre’s Artistic director, has personally handed each diploma to each of the graduates on a stage, which had become home for the young performers. “Today you are at the start of your independent artistic path. You all have a lot to do and to work selflessly, not forgetting for a moment those high criteria that the opera genre carries in itself” – Olga Mstislavovna said in her warm farewell speech to the alumni.
Finally, in the end of the festive night, all the graduates have performed an ensemble from The Bat operetta. But the voices of tonight’s heroes will sound in this hall again: according to a tradition, the alumni will continue to take part in concerts and Centre’s productions.