Gergiev takes Mariinsky to Muti’s Italian festival

Gergiev takes Mariinsky to Muti’s Italian festival

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norman lebrecht

July 26, 2020

The Mariinsky chief has announced:

We are probably the first ensemble to fly anywhere in five months for major touring performances. The Ravenna Festival in Italy is the largest festival, this is the festival of Riccardo and Cristina Muti, my wonderful Italian colleagues and friends. 

 

Comments

  • engineers_unite says:

    GERGIEV can keep it.
    We don’t need to hear any more of his half baked, semi rehearsed trash conducted with a shaking palsy in his baton.

    Who does he think he is?
    A musician?

    • Sergey says:

      To be honest, the present days will show us that he is the one who will hold the classical music and won’t make it sink in the past. He is the engine for art’s future. Nowadays it’s not a question of rehearsing and quality but to return on the stage

    • Amanda B Reckonedwith says:

      I couldn’t agree more!!!

  • Amos says:

    Brilliant move. An ensemble from one of the under-reported COVID-19 hot spots traveling to a country that experienced one of the worst outbreaks and appears to be recovering. The epitome of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. As for the question of artistry I suspect VG has already cashed the check.

  • anon says:

    If I were living under Putin, and his disastrous handling of the Covid virus, I’d find any excuse to fly the hell outta Russia too, even if it means in the middle of the Indian Ocean, where it’s a lot safer.

  • Alex says:

    Is he making a deal with Elon Musk to take the orchestra into space? The concert in Syria was so ridiculous as the one in Saudi Arabia. Everything he does has a political motivation.

  • MacroV says:

    I despise Gergiev’s politics but over the past 20 years I’ve seen him conduct several different orchestras in 5-6 cities around the world, about a dozen concerts in all. They have all been excellent, memorable performances – nothing cookie-cutter about them. I agree he conducts way too much and probably rehearses too little, but in my experience, he gives good value. Your mileage may vary.

    • Alex says:

      I wish people would realize that there are better orchestras in Russia – St Petersburg Philharmonic and the Russian National Orchestra are two. They are being cautious and careful during this time. And they’d never dream of playing an under rehearsed concert or doing anything as foolish as this.

  • Edgar Self says:

    My nephew Stephan Ruegamer of Berlin Staatsoper sin better times sings Loki with Grgiev and Barenboim and still is on singing tetms with them; not so his Evangelist in Hong Kong with Van Zweden.

    It’s still Putin so far, not Ras-Putin. Gergiev is capable of good things. His Tchaikovsky symphonies with Vienna Philharmonic are more detailed and expressive than his St. Petersburg precursor Mravinsky, and his Rachmaninoff third here with Matsuev was as near Horowitz as a reasonable man could wish. And we got Liadov’s music box to fun down again.

    His conducting is as odd as Temirkanov’s but at the far end of Hegel’s pendulum swing: he wiggles his last finger joints and the players wriggle back. It’s Wigglesworth redux.

    I only wish he’d shave often enough not to be taken for a a Gulag internal emigre. Van Zweden’s half-brother (same mother, different father), or another Solzhenitzen musical offspring. To be fair, my wife says the same about me, but wives just don’t understand.

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