{"id":28498,"date":"2018-04-20T03:45:58","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T10:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=28498"},"modified":"2018-04-18T16:04:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T23:04:11","slug":"festival-fetes-russian-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/04\/20\/festival-fetes-russian-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival f\u00eates Russian music"},"content":{"rendered":"

A scene from Vancouver Opera\u2019s production of Eugene Onegin<\/em>. (photo by Trudie Lee)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve sung a lot of Russian, and I love it,\u201d Jewish community member and opera singer Leah Giselle Field told the Jewish Independent<\/em>. Field will have a lot to love at this year\u2019s Vancouver Opera Festival, which starts next weekend.<\/p>\n

Russian White Nights, the second annual Vancouver Opera Festival, celebrates Russia\u2019s luminous midsummer nights. Among the festival offerings is Eugene Onegin<\/em>, based on the classic of Russian literature by Alexander Pushkin, which was turned into a lyric opera with a libretto co-written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with K.S. Shilovsky. The festival will also feature the premi\u00e8re of The Overcoat<\/em>, an opera based on Nikolai Gogol\u2019s famous short story, as well as Requiem for a Lost Girl<\/em>, an original chamber musical collaboration that explores themes around homelessness and violence towards women.<\/p>\n

According to the press material, Eugene Onegin<\/em> \u2013 which plays April 29 in the afternoon, and the evenings of May 3 and May 5 \u2013 promises \u201cbreathtaking music [and] choreography, lavish orchestrations and compelling arias.\u201d Field will be playing the role of Larina, the mother of the two main female protagonists of the story, Olga and Tatyana.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe libretto includes portions of the original verses of Pushkin,\u201d Field said, noting that the score is one of her favourites. \u201cTchaikovsky originally thought it would be blasphemy to make Pushkin\u2019s poem into an opera, but eventually he agreed. I love the Pushkin poem the opera is based on as well \u2013 it\u2019s so environmentally evocative, it is so Russian, and it takes you into right into that environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of Russians feature in the cast, including baritone Konstantin Shushakov (Onegin), soprano Svetlana Aksenova (Tatiana) and tenor Alexey Dolgov (Lensky). This new production has been created in collaboration with Calgary Opera and is directed by Tom Diamond and conducted by Jonathan Darlington. Eugene Onegin<\/em> will be sung in Russian with English surtitles projected on a screen.<\/p>\n

In addition to Eugene Onegin<\/em>, Field will participate in a chamber music performance of Dmitri Shostakovich\u2019s From Jewish Folk-Poetry Op. 70 on May 4, 5 p.m., at CBC Studio 700. This song cycle was written in 1948 by the Soviet composer, who initially wrote eight songs that were meant to reflect the hardships of being Jewish in the Soviet Union. In order to disguise this sensitive material, Shostakovich added three more songs depicting the \u201cgreat life\u201d Jews had under the Soviet regime. Despite these efforts, the censors were not fooled and refused to approve the work \u2013 it could not be performed until after Stalin\u2019s death in March 1953.<\/p>\n

On the lighter side, Field will also appear in a family-oriented original adaptation of Maurice Sendak\u2019s Where the Wild Things Are<\/em>, a student performance co-produced by Vancouver Opera and Delta School of Music on May 5, 1 p.m., also at CBC Studio 700. The production is one of four offerings aimed at children and\/or teens on the festival\u2019s Family Day.<\/p>\n

Vancouver Opera general director Kim Gaynor, also a member of the Jewish community, is in her second season at the organization, which she came to after years working the festival circuit in Europe. Gaynor told the Independent<\/em> that she has modified the Vancouver festival quite a bit from its first year, trying to take a more \u201cout of the box\u201d approach. This includes a more diverse and daring program with a mixture of classical and contemporary works, and the inclusion of chamber music. The festival will also include three films: the silent film Man With A Movie Camera<\/em> on April 28, the 2001 CBC production of The Overcoat<\/em> on April 29 and 1965\u2019s Dr. Zhivago<\/em> on May 1.<\/p>\n

The festival starts on April 28 with an outdoor celebration at Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza that features Russian cultural performers, food trucks, market vendors, a circus presentation, a movie screening and a patio bar. Festivities that day will get underway at 2 p.m., and a highlight will be the re-creation of the pinnacle of white nights celebrations in Russia that evening. A 40-foot schooner with scarlet sails will serve as the stage for acrobatics, music and custom-designed projections on the 22-foot-high sails in a performance suitable for all ages. Scarlet Sails will also be offered April 29 and May 3 and 5.<\/p>\n

The Vancouver Opera Festival runs to May 6. The full program and more information can be found at vancouveropera.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Matthew Gindin<\/strong> is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the <\/em>CJN, writes regularly for the <\/em>Forward, <\/em>Tricycle and the <\/em>Wisdom Daily, and has been published in <\/em>Sojourners, <\/em>Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A scene from Vancouver Opera\u2019s production of Eugene Onegin. (photo by Trudie Lee) \u201cI\u2019ve sung a lot of Russian, and I love it,\u201d Jewish community member and opera singer Leah Giselle Field told the Jewish Independent. Field will have a lot to love at this year\u2019s Vancouver Opera Festival, which starts next weekend. Russian White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[8070,6873,6970,8069,5606,6540],"class_list":["post-28498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-chamber-music","tag-film","tag-kim-gaynor","tag-leah-giselle-field","tag-onegin","tag-opera"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}