The Epiphany Festival is not only a long-term New Year's ritual of the New Opera Theatre and one of the best opera festivals in Moscow, but also an homage to the theater's founder, conductor Yevgeny Kolobov. This year the festival is held for the eighth time and will be dedicated to the 75th anniversary since the birth of the maestro. This year, the festival program includes the theater's classical performances in the original author's editions of Maestro Kolobov, concert programs with the participation of famous singers and musicians, and premiere shows. The music program dedicated to Evgeny Kolobov embraces his two favorite musical directions, i.e. Russian and Italian repertoire. The Epiphany Festival is opening on January 19 - the day of the Orthodox feast of the Epiphany and the birthday of Maestro Kolobov. One of the greatest sacred music compositions in the world repertoire, "Requiem" by Giuseppe Verdi, is going to be performed on the stage of the New Opera tonight. This score, in which the monumentality of the music is intertwined with the drama of personal experiences, was one of Kolobov's favorite compositions. On the day of the maestro's 75th anniversary, the funeral mass will be performed by soloists, choir and orchestra of the New Opera Theater under the baton of the theatre's new chief conductor, Alexander Samoile. January 22, 2021, will see at the Epiphany Festival, Rachmaninoff's choral composition "The Liturgy of St. Nicholas" stylistically anticipating Rachmaninoff's famous "All-Night Vigil". The Italian opera is represented in the program with Bellini'sa «The Pirate» and Verdi's «Force of Fate» in concert performances. Bellini's early masterpiece "The Pirate" composed four years before the sublime-tragic "Norma" and lyrically-pastoral "Somnambulist", is characterized by an amazing plasticity of melody and will be performed on January 23 in the author's edition and orchestration of Kolobov. It was based on the clavier and fragments of the score found in the library of the Mariinsky Theater. On January 29, music lovers in Moscow will hear "The Power of Fate", the only Verdi composition created specifically for the Russian Theater (Mariinsky Theatre, to be exact). This Verdi opera is one of the most significant works in the life of Yevgeny Kolobov, which he once staged at the Mariinsky Theater. This year it was not without one of the most famous performances of the New Opera – Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" in an unusual author's version of the maestro. Evgeny Kolobov chose the original ending authored by the composer. The production has been running in its original form since 1996 and will once again be a tribute to the founder of the theater. Finally, the evening of January 30 will be dedicated to the romances of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff in a free orchestral arrangement by Evgeny Kolobov. A separate event of the festival, somewhat beyond the scope of its concept, will be the performance of Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" in the stage version by Nicola Raab. It will take place on January 24 This performance, staged in 2013, was the first Moscow production of this Wagner opera. It is especially remarkable for the fact that the performance involves Alfred Roller scenery sketches, created for the legendary performance "Tristan and Isolde" at the Vienna Opera (1903, conductor and director Gustav Mahler). The musical director of the production, chief guest conductor of the theater Jan Latham-Koenig will conduct the evevent. In 2014, he received the Golden Mask Award for this work. Two events of the festival, namely concert performances of "Pirate" and "Forces of Fate" - will be broadcast online on the theater's YouTube channel, on its official website and social networks.


Author: Vera Ivanova

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