Russian soprano Anna Netrebko is the featured artist in the latest Met Stars Live in Concert performance, and tomorrow evening Ms Netrebko appears in an online recital from the famed Spanish Riding School in Vienna.
Singing Russian songs by Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, as well as selections by Debussy, Dvořák, Fauré and Strauss, Ms Netrebko is accompanied by pianist Pavel Nebolsin whom she describes as an “Incredible, beautiful musician ….”. She will also perform duets from Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, with Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova.
part of the Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Met Stars Live’ series. Photo Jürgen Hausmann / Met Opera
Anna Netrebko made her operatic debut with the Metropolitan Opera as Natasha Rostova in Prokofiev’s War and Peace in 2002, having debuted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in the same role two years previously. Since her Met debut, she has appeared there in the title roles of Iolanta, Manon, Anna Bolena, Lucia di Lammermoor and Tosca, and in roles such as Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Leonora in Il Trovatore, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Musetta and Mimì in La Bohème.
No other principal Met artist has starred in more Live in HD transmissions since the inception of the series in 2006.
In November last year, Ms Netrebko was announced as a laureate for the 25th annual International Stanislavsky Prize, alongside several other notable Russian artists, for their for “outstanding contribution to the development of world theatrical art”.
The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is the home of the internationally renowned Lippizaner stallions, a breed which dates back to 1580 and Archduke Karl von Habsburg’s Imperial Stud Farm. The Spanish Riding School is the only institution in the world which has practised for more than 450 years, cultivating classical equitation in the Renaissance tradition of the Haute Ecole – which can also be found on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. The white stone balustrades, galleries and columns which dominate the architecture of the riding arena, softly lit by chandeliers, create a majestic environment is for this recital, and for the world’s oldest working riding school still practising the classical art of renaissance dressage.
Anna Netrebko appears in the Met Stars Live in Concert recital, streamed live via the Metropolitan Opera website on Saturday, 6th February at 6:00pm UK time (1.00 pm ET). Tickets for this pay-per-view performance, priced at $20, are now on sale on the Met’s website. The recital will be available on demand for 14 days.
Information sourced from:
Metropolitan Opera programme notes
Anna Netrebko’s website
The Royal Opera House