Says Maria Safaryants, Artistic Director of the “Palaces of St. Petersburg” international festival
Recently, the National Opera House hosted the first staging of the conductor, Honored Artist of Russia, newly appointed Artistic Director Konstantin Orbelian with a gala concert. With his conductorship, we have attended numerous symphonic music evenings. The evening held at the Opera House was exclusively selected of finest samples of the world opera literature.
The concert participants included the orchestra of the theater, the choir, and the soloists. Extracts, solos and duets from the operas included in the repertoire sounded, including Verdi’s “Aida”, “Il Trovatore”, “La Traviata”, Bellini’s “Norma”, Bizet’s “Carmen” as well as at least sectoral pieces of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”, “Queen of Spades Dama”, Puccini’s “Tosca” and Verdi’s “Nabucco” operas after years’ of silence.
The soloists included in the program were Honored Artist of Armenia Marine Deinyan, Gevorg Hakobyan, leading soloists Narine Ananikyan, Hasmik Torosyan, David Babayants, Hovhannes Ayvazyan, who are welcoming guests to other opera theaters a long time ago. Note that one or two soloists who we have never met before at gala concerts, in fact, Konstantin Orbelian was the first to present them in this format, such as Suzanna Melkonyan, Lilit Hakobyan, Lilit Gevorgyan and Armen Grigoryan. The packed concert hall showed its gratitude to the performers with bravos, including the maestro himself. A piece from the gala concert at the Opera House.
In an interview with “Aravot”, musicologist and professor Nelly Avetisyan emphasized the velvet sound of the orchestra under the conductorship of Orberlian and said that this concert was once again a proof of the fact that it is not necessarily to present arias in Italian and Russian only by the representatives of those nations. The Russian Ambassador to Armenia Ivan Volinkin reminded in this respect that Aram Khachaturian had trusted his Violin Concerto premiere to David Oistrakh. Orbelian has invited the UK and Wales opera conductor Stephen Harris, and the concertmaster of the Bolshoi Theatre Svetlana Efimova especially for this concert.
We also talked to Konstantin Orbelian’s wife, the founding president and artistic director of the “Palaces of St. Petersburg” annual classical music international festival, Maria Safaryants. Our interlocutor expressed his satisfaction with the concert, saying that the reputation of the Armenian vocal school is not new and recalled that in 2014, by his invitation, the opera soloists, including Anahit Mkhitaryan, Christina Sahakian, Perch Karazyan and Hovhannes Nersisyan, had a brilliant performance at the big concert hall named after Shostakovich in the framework of “Palaces of St. Petersburg” festival.
“These names in addition to famous works of Western European composers, including also operas, brilliantly performed the works of Komitas, Narekatsi and Spendiarian,” – added Mrs. Safaryants. To half-serious and half-jokingly question that during the terms of her husband at the Yerevan Opera House, she perhaps will pay more attention to the Armenian singers, our interlocutor replied, The St. Petersburg festival, which is held for over 20 years, at this moment, if I try hard to recall, I do not remember any single year without Armenian singers, moreover, both local and also formerly Armenian vocalists working in the West, as well as instrumental performers were shining with their artistry.”
We reminded our interlocutor her single performance as a violinist accompanied by the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia and inquired whether she will continue her solo activities. “I think there is no need to present the degree of business of the President of the “Palaces of St. Petersburg” Foundation, which includes not only classical music art but also folk music, ethnic music programs in various museums, as well as joint projects with other long ago famous festivals, such as the “Pablo Casals” in Spain, “David Oistrakh” in Estonia, various musical bridges with other Western countries and so on. I have established and participated in the performances of “St. Petersburg Trio” with my colleagues: pianist Sergey Urivayev and cellist Leonid Shukayev and so on,” – said Maria Safaryants and added with a smile, – I must live up to the title of Honorary Artist of Russia”.
Samvel DANIELYAN
