SYMPHONIC SEASON 2025
Oksana Lyniv director
Dmytro Udovychenko violin
ŠOSTAKOVIČ | GLIÈRE | BARTÓK
Oksana Lyniv
PROGRAM
Dmitry Dmitrievič Šostakovič
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in A minor, Opus 77
In 1934, Stalin had a new decree issued by which he tightened censorship even more around plays, ballets and instrumental music. Dmitry Sostakovic, whose Lady Macbeth of the Mcensk District, after its initial success, disappeared from circulation once it was framed in the crosshairs of “Pravda,” was one of the victims. Among the reasons for banning an opera was the “lack of proper ideological perspective.” That is why Sostakovic, who in those years saw his best friends and colleagues disappear (not metaphorically), kept numerous compositions to himself. Violin Concerto No. 1 is part of this list: written in the second half of the 1940s, the work did not see the light of day until 1955, two years after Stalin’s death, performed by David Oistrakh, who is also the work’s dedicatee. Here the writing lingers on the dark sides of emotionality, quite the opposite of what the regime demanded. And Sostakovic emphasizes this by “signing” himself repeatedly in code with his own initials, D.SCH, a literal transposition of the “re-mi flat-do-si” figuration, a musical alter ego proudly claiming authorship of a work finally free of outside interference.
Reinhold Glière
The Sirens, op. 33
Of Polish and Saxon descent but born in Kiev, Reinhold Glière held numerous official positions in the Soviet Union. In the early years of the Revolution he directed the music section of the Moscow Department of Popular Education and was chairman of the organizing committee of the Union of Composers from 1938 to 1948. His work was officially recognized by various state awards, including the title of People’s Artist, bestowed on him in 1938. As a composer Glière was heir to the Romantic tradition, which earned him official praise in 1948, when the music of Prokofiev and Sostakovic was still being partly obstructed by censorship. The symphonic poem The Sirens, was completed in 1908 and provides evidence of Glière’s deft handling of the orchestra, capable of creating evocative suggestions of the enchantresses who lured sailors with their song.
Béla Bartók
“The Wonderful Mandarin,” concert suite, op. 19
The story of the “Marvellous Mandarin” is set in a sordid metropolis: three thugs force a girl to lure men, then attack and rob them once they enter the room. Death and amorous ecstasy are intertwined in this pantomime by Béla Bartók, a composition we know today mainly in its ballet version, which he arrived at, however, through a troubled affair: Bartók began working on it at the end of the Great War, attracted by the unusual mixture of the sordid and the fairy-tale, the realistic and the dreamlike that he found in the play written in 1916 by the playwright Menyhért Lengyel. But Hungary’s post-war events, with the revolutionary interlude and the subsequent establishment of the Hörthy regime, forced him to discontinue the work, which would not be performed until 1926, creating a scandal even after its first performance in Germany.
PROGRAM
Hector Berlioz
Overture, “Le Carnaval Romain”
In 1844 Hector Berlioz, among the great fathers of French Romanticism and one of the greatest innovators in the symphonic field, wrote a concert piece in A major with an extensive solo part reserved for the English horn. Thus was born the Overture “Le Carnaval romain,” a brilliant piece of broad melodic generosity, full of themes from the opera Benvenuto Cellini, composed six years earlier. The themes of the opera used, in fact, are those related to the Roman carnival scenes from which the overture takes its title.
Claude Debussy
“Prèlude à l’après-midi d’un faune.”
The notes are released like sensual exhalations in “Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune” (1892-94) Claude Debussy’s first great symphonic masterpiece, which is immediately presented with its “new breath” (Pierre Boulez’s definition) thanks to the flute’s enigmatic opening phrase, “so full of voluptuousness as to become anguished,” Vladimir Jankélévitch’s words.
ORCHESTRA DEL TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
ORCHESTRA DEL TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
An orchestra of great tradition, Sergiu Celibidache, ZoltánPeskó, Vladimir Delman, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, and Michele Mariotti have taken turns at its helm as music directors. Among the conductors who have led the ensemble are Gary Bertini, Myung-Whun Chung, James Conlon, Pinchas Steinberg, Valery Gergiev, Eliau Inbal, Vladimir Jurowskij, Daniel Oren, Peter Maag, Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Mstislav Rostropovič, Esa Pekka Salonen, Georg Solti, Christian Thielemann, Charles Dutoit, Georges Prêtre. The Teatro Comunale Orchestra is frequently invited abroad (Holland, Romania, Spain, France and Switzerland) and has participated in prestigious festivals (Amsterdam 1987, Parma 1990, Wiesbaden 1994, Santander 2004 and 2008, Aix en Provence 2005, Savonlinna 2006, Macau 2013, Muscat 2015, Guanajuato in Mexico 2017, Paris 2018). A privileged relationship with Japan has resulted in several tours, most recently in June 2019 in Osaka, Tokyo, Yokohama, Fukuoka, with Rigoletto and Il barbiere di Siviglia.
Numerous record productions, including La Favorita diretta da Richard Bonynge, Oberto Conte di San Bonifacio diretto da Zoltán Peskó, Il barbiere di Siviglia diretto da Giuseppe Patané, La figlia del reggimento diretta da Bruno Campanella, Le maschere e La bohème dirette da Gianluigi Gelmetti, La scala di seta diretta da Gabriele Ferro, Macbeth, Manon Lescaut, Rigoletto, La cenerentola, Messa Solenne e le produzioni videografiche dei Vespri siciliani e di Giovanna d’Arco e Werther dirette da Riccardo Chailly, Armida diretta da Daniele Gatti, Simon Boccanegra e Attila diretti da Michele Mariotti .
The Orchestra, led by Mariotti, has recorded for Decca a CD of sacred arias with Juan Diego Flórez and for Sony an album of romantic arias with Nino Machaidze; for Deutsche Grammophon Le Comte Ory with Flórez and La Nuit de Mai, opera arias and songs by Leoncavallo, with Placido Domingo; and for the PENTATONE label a CD of Rossini overtures to celebrate 150 years since the composer’s death.In April 2021 the orchestra recorded for Deutsche Grammophon a forthcoming disc with tenor Benjamin Bernheim and Frédéric Chaslin on the podium.
Nel marzo 2013 i corpi artistici del Teatro Comunale di Bologna diretti da Mariotti sono stati protagonisti del concerto inaugurale del IV Festival internazionale Mstislav Rostropovich di Mosca eseguendo la Messa da Requiem di Verdi. Poi nell’ottobre del 2015 hanno inaugurato la rassegna Lingotto Musica presso l’Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli di Torino, dove hanno eseguito lo Stabat Mater, l’Ouverture e le Danze dal Guillaume Tell di Rossini. Inoltre, la nuova produzione della Bohème al Teatro Comunale, con la regia di Graham Vick e la direzione di Mariotti, ha vinto il Premio Abbiati come miglior spettacolo del 2018.
After thirty years of participation in the Rossini Opera Festival (from 1988 to 2016), 2017 marked a new collaboration between the Municipal Theatre of Bologna and the Verdi Festival of Parma which, among the various productions, saw the Orchestra engaged in the Stiffelio signed by Graham Vick. Staged at the Farnese Theatre, it achieved a great success with the public and critics by winning the Special Prize of the 37th “Franco Abbiati” Music Critics Award. In 2019 the Orchestra was the protagonist of the Verdi Festival in the Luisa Miller at the church of San Francesco del Prato in Parma and in the Aida at the Verdi Theatre in Busseto, while in 2020 of a symphonic concert conducted by Valerij Gergiev at the Teatro Regio in Parma. Since January 2022 the Musical Director of the Municipal Theatre of Bologna is Oksana Lyniv.
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11 DEC | H 20:30
Auditorium Manzoni
Oct. 31 | H 8:30 p.m.
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26 SEP | H 8:30 p.m.
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31 MAY | H 8:30 p.m.
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21 SET | H 8:30 p.m.
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16 SEP | H 8:30 p.m.
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APR 30 | H 8:30 p.m.
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JUN 20 | H 8:30 p.m.
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10 MAG | H 8:30 p.m.
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6 MAG | H 8:30 p.m.
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24 APR | H 20.30
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28 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
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1 DEC | H 20:30
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16 MAR | H 5:30 p.m.
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12 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
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6 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
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17 FEB | H 20.30
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8 FEB | H 8:30 p.m.
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2 FEB | H 5:30 p.m.
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JAN 12 | H 5:30 p.m.
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