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1979
             
A longtime chairman of the Soviet Composers' Union, Tikhon Khrennikov keeps reverting to his previous compositions producing symphonic suites, operas and ballets from the stage and movie scores of old. This time round he is reworking into a ballet the music he once wrote for Eldar Ryazanov's Hussar Ballad comedy. The captivating story of a young girl who decides to pass for a man to join the Russian army fighting Napoleon, fits the classical ballet idiom just fine...
In the spring, the ballet premieres at the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater in Leningrad. Melodious and visually attractive as it is, however, the new ballet proves short-lived and is eventually shelved…
In Moscow, the Bolshoi Theater raises critical eyebrows with a new dramatization of Giuseppe Verdi's Masked Ball opera conducted by Algis Zhurajtis who never led an opera before. To design the set, they invite Nikolai Benois to come over from Italy. Working in Moscow is a real pleasure for Benois whose parents were born in Russia.
The new opera is painstakingly produced boasting a stellar lineup of singers with Yelena Obraztsova playing Ulrike the Witch…
The Masked Ball has since been a real jewel in the crown of the Bolshoi's impressive program.
On March 29 they were marking the centenary of Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. The great composer once said the opera was in fact a series of lyrical scenes written with Moscow Conservatory students in mind. The opera played to high praise and, before long, it was one of the most popular ones around, staged by leading companies in Russia and elsewhere in Europe. In 1897 Gustav Mahler conducted it at the Vienna Opera House and, three years later, Eugene Onegin had its La Scala premiere under the baton of the great Arturo Toscanini…
A box-office record-holder, Eugene Onegin was on the playbill of each and every theater around the nation. Its records were selling in millions of copies and enjoyed extensive airplay. Thousands of people knew the score by heart and Lensky's much-loved aria immediately brought to mind the sweet voice of Sergei Lemeshev who sung the part of the impassioned poet more than 300 times…
In Leningrad, they marked the 73rd birthday of Dmitry Shostakovich with the September 25 premiere at the Philharmonic Big Hall of the music Shostakovich wrote in 1940 for the cartoon Tale of a Priest and His Dumb Hired Man after a poem of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The film never came out and perished, along with the score, when the Nazis bombed out the film depositary it was in in the summer of 1941…
The score was later restored and the conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky reworked it into a suite using rough copies found in Shostakovich's personal papers after the composer's death in 1975...
Several years later, the suite was expanded to a full-blown ballet of the same name that has since been very successfully played by the Maly Opera and Ballet Theater in Leningrad and the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow.
On December 30, a newly-formed Virtuosos of Moscow chamber orchestra were making their first performance in the Conservatory Big Hall in Moscow. Conducting his ambitiously-titled outfit that night was the well-known violinist Vladimir Spivakov. It was his first trial of hand as a conductor…
The new orchestra perfectly justified its name. Small wonder, given the Virtuosos' absolutely stellar lineup. The orchestra was initially lead by members of the world-famous Borodin string quartet who added zest to the orchestra's performances.
The Virtuosos of Moscow play an extensive repertoire of music by J.S.Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Boccherini and a selection of beautiful salon music specially arranged to be played by them and no one else… Spivakov often doubles as a lead player and conductor…
Their democratic repertoire and larger-than-life performing skills quickly propel the Virtuosos to national prominence. There are so many people coming in to see them play that the concert hall management often has to put up an extra row of chairs right on the stage….
In Moscow, pop music aficionados were in seventh heaven watching the first-ever performance here of the popular French crooner Joe Dassin. He sings at the opening ceremony of Moscow's largest Cosmos Hotel, built expressly for the upcoming 1980 Summer Olympics. Dassin is in raptures about the hotel, the guest-loving city and the enthusiastic Russian fans…
Vladimir Menshov's melodrama Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears hits the screens offering a modern-age version of Cinderella where a wide-eyed country girl works her way up to run a major textile mill. The Oscar-winning film is hugely popular and the whole country sings along with this charming song contributed to the movie by the popular singer-songwriter Sergei Nikitin…
Another major cinematic highlight of the year was Mark Zakharov's An Ordinary Miracle movie to music written by composer Gennady Gladkov. The film is all about great love, which is stronger than the King, stronger than the Wizard himself. It breaks the dreadful spell and works miracles giving people hope that, some day, they all will be happy …
The Ordinary Miracle has over the years become a generally-recognized Russian film classic .
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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