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Dear Friends of Avantart!
Not only Puschkin has his celebration this year, Russians also commemorate the transition of the Swiss Alps the Russian Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevich Suvorov and his troops 200 years ago. Not only militarists and historians remember this Russian Hannibal, russian artists celebrate this event, which, in their eyes, brought cultural enlightenment into a rural, plain agricultural region. Poor, big Russia now is bringing humanitarian aid to the rich, small Switzerland, russian and international artists prepare for their cultural attack in September 1999.
The International Summertheater-Festival in Hamburg is one most renowned festivals for New Theatre in Germany and Europe. I have seen wonderful performances by slovenian ensembles, from Taiwan and China, but Russia was always Terra Incognita there. Now this years, the ask us (and themselves): "Where is the East?" and they bring some russian theatre - ensembles to Hamburg. For sure I will go there and I am very curious already. I think, they followed the old trail to the theatres of St. Petersburg and Moscow, but they missed Ekaterinburg for example, and so the program will just be like a first glimpse into a new world. That's my impression, there is much more to see... but I am glad that there are some performances at least.
Alexey Aigi, the gifted violin player from Moscow, will come and some friends from the Ekaterinburg Center of Contemporary Art are expected as well, (you will not find them in the official festival program, they take part in the workshop).
Have a look at the program of the festival!
The Dresden Sinfoniker, a conceptual symphonic orchestra, planned two performances of Avet Terterian's Third Symphony, in Dresden and Berlin, July 16 and 17. But unfortunately, the Berlin concert was cancelled. I do not know about the reasons, but it was not because of the music...
The Dresden Concert was a great triumph, and you will find the newspaper reviews at the Terterian WebSite in a few days.
For a long time I had a division "All about Russia" at Avantart. This was a mere linklist and it is obvious, that it could never be sufficient... So I changed the title. Now it is "Russia how I see it... " and that is a better fitting header, I think. Here I bring together many pages with Russian topics from all over Avantart and you can find pages on northern wooden architecture as well as funny photos from the Nighttrain Vologda - Arkhangelsk.
Have a look and make discoveries!
Operas describe strange emotions in a foreign language, a musical language, which expresses great emotions by vibrato and roar. A strange language for me.
But Opera is not a dead form of art. Contemporary composers and Operahouse accept the challenge. I was very annoyed by the denouncing production of NonoÄs Opera Al gran carico di Amore at the Hamburg Opera in the last season. But I was very pleased by the successfull production of Heimat, an opera by the composer Cornelius Schwer, at the Freiburg Theatre.
Cornelius Schwehr, composition professor at the Freiburg Highschool of Music, is a pupil of Helmut Lachenmann and that you hear. But the music fits so well to images, to the plot (which, like mostly at all operas) is not so easy to understand, that my typical pondering Why? Why this way? For what? didn't happen.
Music and Stage and Image are One
The retrospective to a failed revolution and the human weakness, which is one of the main obstacles for revolution, was presented, opposite to the production of Nono's Opera in Hamburg, without pathos, human, and by that even more intense.
You do not remember the music afterwards, there are no melodies, but every sound, every note, fitted.
A present.
The Bitov Quintet performed in Berlin, and Andrej Bitov read poems by Puschkin, accompanied by Vladimir Tarasov, Juri Parfionov, Sascha Alexandrov and Vladimir Volkow. This performance took place in the House of Russian Culture and the Puschkin Festival gave place for a performance by Vjacheslav Makarov (Smolensk) and his son as well. We met a lot of friends there, and I found the poetry of Vyacheslav Kuprianov, whose poems really struck me with their intensity.
No promises, but I am sure I can present some of his poems here sometime.
SolydRecords from Moscow found their place at Avantart. Now I added a list of interesting CDs by Russian Poets and Songwriters like Alexander Galitch, Bulat Okudjava and Vladimir Vyssotsky and others. I cannot offer an order form, because international distribution is difficult, but there is an information form, where you can select which CDs are of interest for you and Andrej Gavrilov will try to find some ways to deliver.
I am very sorry, but because of some company projects I had to cancel my plans to go south, to go to Arles in Southern France for the MIMI Festival . I am really sad, I was looking forward to a concert with Charles Haywardand I whish Ferdinand and his crew really big success!
There is a new PlugIn out for the Browsers: ThirdVoice. This tools allows to pick notes on other websites. I joined an american WebInitiative in their argumentation against that tool. Please read here why I think this tool is so dangerous and please support Say NO to ThirdVoice!
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