In the autumn of the LNSO’s 90th anniversary it is a joy to make music once again with Vassily Sinaisky, the orchestra’s Artistic Director from 1975 to 1987.
The concert’s magnum opus is Hector Berlioz’s dramatic legend “The Damnation of Faust”.
At the age of twenty-five Berlioz read the first part of Goethe’s “Faust” in French translation (the second part had yet to be written) and swiftly composed his “Eight Scenes from Faust”, which he later struck from his list of works, though he reused a great deal of its music in the grand legend “The Damnation of Faust”. That “later” came around 1845, when intensive work on this large-scale piece began. At the time Berlioz was on a concert tour through Vienna, Pest, Prague, Breslau and Brunswick. He wrote much of the libretto himself, composing in mail coaches, trains and steamships, in a tavern in Passau, in Vienna and in Pest. Berlioz finished the work in Paris; the premiere took place in December 1846 and was received by Parisians with considerable indifference.
Unlike Goethe’s original, Berlioz stands on little ceremony – Faust, the ideal Romantic hero tempted by the Evil One, ends his life damned to hell, while Marguerite ascends to heaven. Curiously, in Berlioz’s arrangement the action of the legend begins in Hungary, though from the second part of the work onwards it moves to where it belongs – Germany.
The lion’s share of the singing falls to Faust, so it is a particular pleasure that the Czech tenor Pavel Černoch, much loved in Latvia and in demand around the world for several years now, has promised his vocal presence. His Marguerite will be Olesya Petrova from St Petersburg, the owner of a dark, richly coloured voice. As Mephistopheles we will hear Armands Siliņš, soloist of the Latvian National Opera. And finally, the work would be unthinkable without the ironic tale of the tragic fate of a kitchen rat: the student Brander will be sung by Latvian National Opera soloist Rihards Mačanovskis.
Taking part in the performance of the legend will be the State Choir Latvija, transformed by turns into peasants, churchgoers, tavern revellers, gnomes, sylphs, students, soldiers, will-o’-the-wisps, demons and heavenly spirits.
Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust” was conducted in Riga many years ago by Neeme Järvi and Vladimir Fedoseyev, while since the restoration of independence we have followed the sinner Faust’s path under Imants Resnis, Paul Mägi, Viesturs Gailis, Olari Elts and, during the “French Spring” festival, Patrick Souillot.
Before Berlioz’s masterpiece we will hear a beautiful work for strings by Pēteris Vasks, who celebrates an anniversary in 2016: Cantabile. In 1979 this piece made Pēteris Vasks one of the prizewinners in a competition for orchestral works marking the centenary of Alfrēds Kalniņš. Cantabile went on to become one of the hallmarks of Vasks’s output – saying what he has to say powerfully and simply.
Pavel Černoch – tenor
Olesya Petrova – mezzo-soprano
Armands Siliņš – baritone
Rihards Mačanovskis – bass-baritone
State Choir “Latvija” – Choir