School of Music

Opera symposium incorporates Taneyev première

'Non-Nationalist' Russian repertoire under consideration at event

The School of Music plays host to an International Symposium on 'Non-Nationalist' Russian Opera on 16-17 November, 2010 alongside a UK and European première of the first act of Taneyev;s opera Oresteia.

The rise of nationalism in nineteenth-century Russian opera completely eclipsed the works of composers who did not actively engage in nationalist discourse, or whose operas did not display particular Russian musical style.

Such works include are Sergey Taneyev's Oresteia, Anton Arensky's Rafael, as well as a number of examples by César Cui, Anton Rubinstein, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, and others.

The symposium will address the 'other' side of Russian opera as represented by stage works that cannot so readily be subsumed under the theme of national identity.

The keynote presentations will be given by Richard Taruskin (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and Marina Frolova-Walker (University of Cambridge, UK).

Comments one of the organising team, Dr Anatasia Belina: 'We are particularly delighted to have Vladimir Ashkenazy and Steven Isserlis as the patrons of the première.'

For details on the symposium visit the conference website here

For concert ticket details see the Concert Series Box Office here

 

Date Published:1 November 2010
Keywords: Sergei Taneyev, Oresteia, Russian Opera conference, Anatasia Belina