RACS - Russian American Colony Singers
Address:
P. O. Box 770787, Eagle River, Alaska 99577, U.S.A.
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2000-2010.
Conductor -
Pavel Sharomov,
Honored Artist of Russia
RACS Art Director -Zlata Lund
RACS President -Meg Girard
Русский Хор на Аляске
Baritone Anton Belov
--the primo uomo in the Anchorage Opera's production of
Eugene Onegin
will appear in recital of Russian art songs inspired by Alexander Pushkin
. He will be joined by pianist
Svetlana Velichko
and the
Russian American Colony Singers
.
February 8, 2010, 7:30 pm
At the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts,
Sydney Laurence Theater
.
Pushkin and Russian Music
No poet is more revered in Russia than Alexander Pushkin. His biography reads like a romantic novel: an ancestry that included both Russian aristocracy and an Abyssinian Prince; numerous amorous adventures (he was in love 104 times according to his own admission); constant quarrels with the authorities, membership in secret societies; exile to the distant parts of the empire; death on a duel to defend his wife's honor.
He transfigured the Russian literature like no other writer either before or since. Pushkin's verse is elegant and, yet, deceptively simple. The absolute perfection of its structure seems to invite a musical setting. Pushkin's stamp upon the Russian music is tremendous: his poetry has inspired hundreds of songs by composers ranging from his own contemporaries to Benjamin Britten. A very incomplete list of operas inspired by him includes Ruslan and Lyudmila, Boris Godunov, Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, Mazepa, Aleko, The Golden Cockerel. It is fair to say that both Russian opera and art song are unimaginable without Pushkin.
This concert presents a general overview of Pushkin's poetry set to music by some of the greatest Russian composers including Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Sviridov, Rachmaninoff and others.
TICKETS at Centertix (
click at link
):
http://alaskapac.centertix.net/eventperformances.asp?evt=127
PRICE: $25 Adults, $20 youth ages 18-, Senior ages 62+.
Pride, prejudice, Pushkin by MIKE DUNHAM in Anchorage Daily News .
By MIKE DUNHAM , Anchorage Daily News, February 10, 2010
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/147948
On Monday we caught a fascinating recital by Anton Belov, who has the lead role in “Onegin.” Belov, who must be as good a scholar as he is a baritone, crafted a program of Russian art songs that use Pushkin’s poems for lyrics. He presented an animated lecture on Pushkin’s life and work in between songs. In a couple of cases, he showed how different composers had given the same words very different treatments, and he dug up some real rarities. Not that many of these songs are that well-known outside Russia. The most famous piece, Anton Rubenstein’s “Melody” remains familiar to pianists, but it turns out it was originally a song – “Night.”
Svetlana Velichko accompanied. The elegant Russian American Colony Singers sang a couple of choral pieces in keeping with the theme. The audience at Sydney Laurence Theatre got two encores, including Aleko’s aria from Rachmaninoff’s opera of the same name.