13.02.2012

Boris Godunov premiere continues Shaliapin Festival

(Kazan, February 13, Tatar-inform). The Tatar Opera and Ballet Theatre and 30th Shaliapin Festival audience will tonight have a great celebration, 139 years since the birth of the great Russian basso, Fedor Shaliapin.

The opera Boris Godunov will tonight be presented in his honour. Shaliapin is known to have been the greatest interpreter of the Tsar Boris’s part of his time, his life being inseparable from the anguished tsar’s role.

The Shaliapin Festival has engaged best world performers for the Boris Godunov play. The list is topped by one of our time’s best interpreters of the Godunov part, Grammy winner Rene Pape.

The part of Ksenia Godunova will be performed by Bolshoi Theatre’s soloist Venera Gimadieva, while the tsar’s son Fedor will be played by Anton Krutko, a singer with a most rare male voice, countertenor.

The list of the festival’s guests includes People’s Artist of Russia Alexei Steblyanko (Shuisky), Bolshoi Theatre soloist Irina Makarova (Marina) and others.

The version, to be presented to the audience tonight, is somewhat unusual, being a combination of two editions, by N.Rimsky-Korsakov and by P.Lamm. It would be the only time the play would be presented in this format.