Conferences, an exhibition & panels
On 10th February 2017, a press conference announcing the international forum Mieczysław Weinberg (1919—1996): A Re-Discovery at the Bolshoi Theatre. The forum dedicated to the life and work of the Polish composer was announced by a panel including Vladimir Urin, Director of the Bolshoi Theatre, Andrei Ustinov, editor of Muzikalnoye Obozryenye magazine, Andrei Shishkin of the Yekaterinburg State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and Aleksander Laskowski from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
That same day, an exhibition was opened to the public at the Bolshoi Theatre. The exhibition presents photographs from previous Russian stagings of Weinberg’s The Passenger (in Yekaterinburg and Moscow) and The Idiot (at the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg). The exhibition will be on until 19th February 2017.
The presentation of papers dedicated to Weinberg’s work will be a key part of the Weinberg forum. On 16th February, participants will discuss The Idiot, based on the motifs of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s prominent novel; on 17th February, participants will take a closer look at The Passenger. Zofia Posmysz, Auschwitz survivor and author of the book upon which Weinberg’s opera was based, will be a special guest. The meeting with Posmysz will be hosted by Krzysztof Olendzki, Director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. On 18th February, Weinberg’s chamber music will be the subject of discussion, while on 19th February, participants will discuss his life and the Polish-Jewish identity of the composer, who spent most of his life in Soviet Russia.
Numerous experts on Weinberg’s music from around the globe will take part in the forum, including participants from Russia, Poland, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel and Sweden.
Operas
During the forum, two of his operas will be staged: The Idiot (16th and 17th February 2017) and The Passenger (18th and 19th February 2017). Alexander Medvedev is the author of both librettos.
Weinberg composed The Idiot in 1985, the opera premiered at the Moscow State Academic Chamber Musical Theatre in 1991, under the direction of Boris Pokrovsky. Outside of Russia, it was performed at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in 2013, where it was recorded and published by Pan Classics. The Moscow adaptation is directed by Yevgeny Arieh, a Russian-Israeli theatre director, while the score will be conducted by Michał Klauza.
The Passenger was written by Weinberg in 1968. The first full staging of the opera took place at the Bregenz Festival in 2010 – in Russia, it was staged for the first time in 2016 in Yekaterinburg. The inspiration for the opera came from the war and post-war experiences of Zofia Posmysz, originally developed as a radio play (1959), later written as a novel (1962).
Concerts
The Weinberg Forum will also be accompanied by live music. Among others, on 15th February, Yelena Prochorova (violin) and Olga Makarova (piano) will perform the Sonata for violin and piano No. 2 op. 15 and Sonata for violin and piano No. 6 op. 136 b at the State Institute of Art Studies. While on 18th February, The Chamber Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre will perform a number of Weinberg’s pieces, including Concertino for violoncello and string orchestra and Six Shakespeare Sonnets, conducted by Mikhail Tsinman.
Mieczysław Weinberg (1919—1996). A Re-Discovery is organised by the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and Muzikalnoye Obozryenye magazine and supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Polish Institute in Moscow.
The full programme of the event is available
here.
Sources: press materials; written by Filip Lech, translated by NR, 15 February 2017