The Performing Arts Center presents the Moscow State Radio Orchestra and Chorus in a full-length concert version of La Traviata on Jan. 31 at 8 p.m. in Hodgson Hall. The performance will feature principal soloists of the Bolshoi Opera and will be conducted by Sergey Kondrashev.
La Traviata was composed by Giuseppe Verdi, with text by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils. The opera, first performed on March 6, 1853, in Venice, tells the heartbreaking love story of Violetta and Alfredo. The Athens performance will be sung in Italian with English supertitles projected above the stage.
The Moscow State Radio Orchestra and Chorus was created in 1978 to broadcast the symphonic repertoire of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries throughout Russia. The orchestra has since expanded its activities into film work for Russian, European and American feature productions, as well as extensive international touring.
The chorus is considered one of Russia’s prized musical possessions. It specializes in operatic, symphonic and sacred music and has toured throughout the world, both with the orchestra and at many international choral festivals.
Conductor Sergey Kondrashev graduated with honors from the Moscow Conservatory in 1999 and was named principal conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre in 2001. The principal roles in Traviata will be sung by soloists from the Bolshoi Opera, with soprano Karina Serbina as Violetta, tenor Sergei Gaidey as Alfredo, mezzo-soprano Elena Okolisheva as Flora and baritone Vladimir Redkin as Germont.
A pre-concert lecture will be given by Stephanie Tingler, an opera specialist in the School of Music. The lecture begins 45 minutes prior to the performance and is free.
