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242th Season

Mariinsky II (New Theatre)

13 February
19:30
2020 | Thursday
Stars of the Stars
Rodion Shchedrin "Lolita" (opera in three acts)
Opera in 3 acts
Conducted by Maestro Gergiev
Artists Credits
Natalia Kitamikado, Costume Designer
Dan Tesař, Lighting Designer
Maestro Valery Gergiev, Musical Director
Boris Kudlichka, Set Designer
Sláva Daubnerová, Stage Director
Performed in Russian
World premiere: National Theatre, Prague
Premiere of this production: 03 Oct 2019



Production by the National Theatre in Prague (2019)

The American bestseller about the passionate relationship between Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged intellectual, literature professor and writer, and the 12-year-old girl Lolita, set in the 1940s or the 1950s, gave rise to fierce debates and generated controversy. Following the initial wave of decrial, its author, Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), a Russian-American novelist and poet, gained global fame. Almost four decades after the book’s publication, the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin (b. 1932) created an opera set to Nabokov’s best-known work. It is his fifth stage piece inspired by literary works by great Russian writers, with the previous ones being the opera Dead Souls (1976, based on Gogol) and the ballets Anna Karenina (1972, based on Tolstoy), The Seagull (1979) and The Lady with the Lapdog (1985, the latter two based on Chekhov).

Shchedrin composed the opera Lolita to his own libretto to commission from Mstislav Rostropovich, who conducted its world premiere (in Swedish translation) on 14 December 1994 in Stockholm. The piece, retelling a multi-layered story, blending themes of sensuality, love and sin, will receive its Czech premiere. The opera’s music reflects a variety of inspirations, with the most distinctly palpable being the Russian Orthodox chant. Whereas Lolita is just the second Shchedrin opera to be presented on a Czech stage (on 20 December 1978, Brno hosted the Czechoslovak premiere of Dead Souls), his ballets, particularly Carmen, are familiar to the local audience. With a certain degree of self-irony, the composer incorporated in Lolita a quotation from Carmen. Shchedrin wrote the majority of his ballets for his wife, the prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who performed in Prague on several occasions. This production of Shchedrin’s Lolita was created for the National Theatre in Prague by the renowned Slovak director and performance artist Sláva Daubnerová, who is noted for her singular approach to 20th–century opera, affording it a forcible and visually provocative touch.

World premiere: 14 December 1994, Royal Swedish Opera (in Swedish language)

Age category 18+

Mariinsky Theatre:
1 Theatre Square
St. Petersburg
Mariinsky-2 (New Theatre):
34 Dekabristov Street
St. Petersburg
Mariinsky Concert Hall:
20 Pisareva street
St. Petersburg

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