03 June 2014, Tuesday

The Bolshoi Theatre, Beethoven Hall
June 3rd, 7.30 p.m.
Young Opera Singers of Moscow and New York

The concert "Young Opera Singers of New York and Moscow" will take place at the Bolshoi Theatre Beethoven Hall on June 3rd at 7.30 p.m. This concert will be a part of the project "Art without Borders" and will star graduates and participants of the Bolshoi Theatre Young Artists Opera Program and the Metropolitan Opera Young Artists Program (Lindemann Young Artist Development Program). The two best opera theatres of the world will present future world opera stars to the capital's audience. The program will include arias and ensembles from operas by Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and Massenet. Marina Costa-Jackson, John Moore, Emma McDermott, Ginger Costa-Jackson, Andrei Zhilikhovsky, Olga Kulchinskya, Yulia Mazurova, Pavel Valuzhin, Bogdan Volkov, Nina Minasyan, Daniil Chesnokov, Arseny Yakovlev and Kristina Mkhitaryan will perform in the concert. Howard Watkins, one of the Metropolitan Opera leading accompanists, and Pavel Nevolsin, the Bolshoi Theatre accompanist, will play the piano.

Dmitry Vdovin, the artistic director of the Bolshoi Young Artists Opera Program:
"I think that today such projects - concerts, starring young artists and young people from different countries - are important today more than ever. The classical and artistic heritage of our nations sets such high standards that it is impossible to waste our energy and time on base instincts. Perhaps, this is what the great guarding and restraining force of culture is about. Representatives of different schools - the Russian, the American, the Ukrainian, the Moldovan, the Belorussian and the Armenian ones - will participate in the concert. The art of opera has long been globalized; this happened even before the term "globalization" appeared. But this is a very good and kind tendency that is based on spiritual communication, co-creation, studying and friendly cooperation. Our driving force is mutual respect and interest for what we do in our profession and how we do it.
Russian singers - for example, Denis Sedov, Rodion Pogosov, Lyubov Petrova and Alexei Lavrov - mastered their skills with the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. The latter was a participant of the Bolshoi Young Artists Opera Program as well. Many American artists have worked in our Program; sometimes singers from the Washington Young Artists Opera Program, and our artists have internships in Washington.
I hope that this mutual interest will not run low.
At some point Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky, whose anniversary we will mark next year, and whose music will be performed in this concert, opened the legendary Carnegie Hall in New York with his concert. Many years later Van Cliburn caused an unprecedented burst of love at the First International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
Our common history is complicated, but it also has many great events. We hope that life will give us a continuation that will be worthy of these great names and wonderful moments of co-creation".