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1999
             
In Russia, the year's biggest highlight was the 200th birthday of the great 19th century poet, novelist and dramatist, Alexander Pushkin. Born in 1799, Pushkin had since become a symbol of Russia being what Shakespeare is to the British and Goethe to the Germans. Small wonder that his bicentennial anniversary was celebrated with all the imaginable pomp and circumstance. The bookstores offered a wide selection of Pushkin's writings and theaters were churning out new productions based on his works. Never to be outdone, musicians across the land were working hard catching up with everyone else staging operas and ballets based on Pushkin's books which have inspired more than 3,000 compositions written by old and modern composers alike…
In Moscow, the Bolshoi Theater marked the anniversary with a new production of the Tale About the Priest and His Dumb Workman Balda ballet to music by Dmitry Shostakovich. Choreographer Vladimir Vasilyev was in seventh heaven rejoicing after the hilarious ballet's very successful premiere…
In St.Petersburg, the Mariinsky Theater offered a rehashed version of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades. Decorations were kept to the minimum with only two curtains, black and white, in the background symbolizing the joys and adversities of life. It was all about happiness and madness, success and defeat, luck and death…
Pushkin was all over the place, his portraits gracing the countless posters, streamers and candy wrappers and radio and television channels repeating his name from morning till dusk… On June 6, Pushin's birthday, millions of people across Russia hit the streets and squares celebrating the anniversary of this country's greatest poet. In Moscow, a larger-than-life extravaganza kicked off in Red Square after dark bringing together Russian and foreign operatic luminaries, among them the world-famous Spanish tenor Placido Domingo singing an aria from Pyotr Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades opera…
Strange as it seemed, the dark specter of Ivan the Terrible once again loomed ominously over Russia with three leading musicians taking up music recreating the blood-curdling image of this 16th century tyrant…
At the Bolshoi Theater, conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov staged Rimsly-Korsakov'a opera Pskovityanka built around Ivan the Terrible's daughter. 45 years after his Bolshoi debut with this very same opera, Svetlanov was doing it again…
Another outstanding conductor - Gennady Rozhdestvensky, offered for the first time, a full version of Sergei Prokofyev's score to The Ivan the Terrible movie by Sergei Eizenshtein. Written in 1944, the score had never been played on stage the way it was supposed to. Conductor Abram Stasevich once brought several episodes together offering some sort of an oratorio, which was quite popular, and now Rozhdestvensky wanted to get back to Prokofyev's original score…
Mstislav Rostropovich staged Sergei Slonimsky's new opera called Ivan the Terrible's Visions. The nationally televised premiere was in Samara, on the Volga…
The audience bore witness to the weird apparitions filling the head of the aging and ailing despot, his consciousness dented by memories of hundreds of innocent lives he took away during his bloody reign…
On September 12 they were marking the 55th birthday of violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov, one of Russia's most popular classical performers admired by millions around the country. On his birthday, Spivakov was very appropriately awarded the Order for Meritorious Services to the Nation - Russia's highest distinction…
Shortly before that, Vladimir Spivakov was appointed artistic director and chief conductor of the Russian National Symphony Orchestra, replacing the outgoing pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev. Spivakov combined his new job with heading the Virtuosos of Moscow chamber orchestra he set up nearly 20 years before. Even though the original lineup had since been completely renewed, their performing excellence remained intact as the Virtuosos kept wowing audiences both in and outside this country…
Young Russian pianists excel at a number of prestigious international competitions. The 19 year-old Muscovite Alexander Kobrin wins the Ferriccio Buzoni contest in Bolzano, Italy breaking the sad tradition of the few previous years when no one played well enough to qualify for the competition's top award…
18 year-old Yevgeny Brakhman from Nizhny Novgorod emerges victorious from the Dino Ciani competition in Milan sponsored by the city's world-famous La Scala Opera…
And the top prize of the Queen Elizabeth competition in Brussels ends up in the hands of 22 year-old Muscovite Alexander Gindin whose solo performance in the Conservatory Big Hall in Moscow then kicked off the Century of Russian Pianism festival organized by the Firebird agency….
With the international megastars now having second thoughts about performing amid Russia political and economic disrepair, concerts played here by the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra led by Claudio Abbado became a major musical highlight of the year offering the Moscow music buffs a string of textbook interpretations of Dvorak and Beethoven…
In Moscow, a major Duke Ellington jazz festival went underway featuring the very best Russian jazzmen, among them the dazzling sax virtuoso Igor Butman who flew in from the United States to play at the larger-than-life jazz extravaganza. The nearly two months-long festival treated the listeners to each and every classical tune ever written and played by the legendary American jazzman…
Meanwhile, Alsu was making a big splash in the pop music department. The young elfin-like singer raised many eyebrows winning the very honorable second prize of the prestigious Eurovision contest. Critics said Alsu's success had much to do with the big oil money her father allegedly contributed to the effort, but Alsu disagreed arguing that her dad was "not rich enough to buy the whole of Europe"...
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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