In a country obsessed with jubilees, where every week you see a gala concert celebrating, say 193 years since the birth of Dargomyzhsky, it takes an impressive anniversary to make one sit up and listen. But when the birthday boy is conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, you know it’s worth bringing out the party hats. The renowned Maestro, who began his career at the age of 20 conducting “The Nutcracker” at the Bolshoi, turns 75 on May 4. The gala programme will be suitably extravagant, with Igor Stravinsky’s “Firework for Orchestra” and Sergei Prokofiev’s “Zdravitsa Cantata.” The central piece of the proceedings will be Jean Sibelius’ rarely performed vocal-symphonic poem Kullervo, for which two Estonian specialists have been called in – mezzo-soprano Pile Lill and tenor Mati Turi. A whole squadron of conductors will be participating in the event, Valery Polyansky and Murad Annamedov, to name but a few. And it is a distinct possibility that Gennady Nikolaevich himself will wield the baton at some point in the evening. The concert starts at 7 p.m. with tickets from 150 rubles.
In a country obsessed with jubilees, where every week you see a gala concert celebrating, say 193 years since the birth of Dargomyzhsky, it takes an impressive anniversary to make one sit up and listen. But when the birthday boy is conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, you know it’s worth bringing out the party hats. The renowned Maestro, who began his career at the age of 20 conducting “The Nutcracker” at the Bolshoi, turns 75 on May 4. The gala programme will be suitably extravagant, with Igor Stravinsky’s “Firework for Orchestra” and Sergei Prokofiev’s “Zdravitsa Cantata.” The central piece of the proceedings will be Jean Sibelius’ rarely performed vocal-symphonic poem Kullervo, for which two Estonian specialists have been called in – mezzo-soprano Pile Lill and tenor Mati Turi. A whole squadron of conductors will be participating in the event, Valery Polyansky and Murad Annamedov, to name but a few. And it is a distinct possibility that Gennady Nikolaevich himself will wield the baton at some point in the evening. The concert starts at 7 p.m. with tickets from 150 rubles.