Montserrat Caballé Festival
7 p.m., 28 March 2025, Oktyabrsky Concert Hall
Duration: 2 hours
Performers: MONTSERRAT MARTÍ CABALLE (soprano), OSCAR ENCINAS (tenor), LUCÍA GARCÍA (soprano), CARLOS COSÍAS (tenor), OLGA PUDOVA
A Russian premiere!
THE MONSERRAT CABALLÉ FESTIVAL
On 28 March 2025, the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall will host a magnificent musical celebration, the first Monserrat Caballé Festival, dedicated to the great Spanish opera singer.
Specially for this event, renowned artists from Spain — relatives, friends, and students of the legendary opera diva — will come to Russia for one evening only! For their one and only performance they have chosen the beautiful St. Petersburg, our country’s musical capital, and the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall, where a distinct atmosphere always reigns.
Monserrat Caballé, whose name has come to symbolize impeccable vocals and subtle artistry, has left an indelible mark on world culture. Having performed over 100 opera roles and almost 1,000 different musical works, she has forever remained in the hearts of not only connoisseurs of exquisite classical music but also fans of musicals and fans of pop rock for performances like the title song from the album Barcelona, the international mega hit she recorded with Queen lead signer Freddie Mercury. Monserrat adored Russia and often visited our country to give concerts. The Caballé family thus decided to hold the first music festival named after her in our country.
The Monserrat Caballé Festival is meant to preserve the superstar’s historical legacy and introduce the public to today’s talents, the most popular performers continuing the Spanish school of opera’s rich traditions.
Among the performers are the great singer’s daughter, MONTSERRAT MARTÍ CABALLÉ (soprano), and the famous Spanish voices OSCAR ENCINAS (tenor), LUCÍA GARCÍA (soprano), and CARLOS COSÍAS (tenor). OLGA PUDOVA, a guest soloist at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, a phenomenal coloratura soprano who has already conquered Europe’s principal opera stages, is a special guest from Russia.
The artists will be accompanied by OLGA PUDOVA, well known to Russian and international audiences, and the famous conductor MIKHAIL GOLIKOV, People’s Artist of Kabardino-Balkaria. Creative teams from St. Petersburg and Moscow will also be involved in the concert.
The Monserrat Caballe Festival is not only a tribute to the legendary singer but also a grand exuberant celebration, aimed at a wide range of spectators and embracing all generations and the most varied musical tastes.
Don’t miss the opportunity to gift yourself an unforgettable evening full of vivid emotions, beautiful melodies and Spanish passion!
Source: Bileter.ru. Translated by the Russian Reader
On 20 October 2012, during her tour in Russia, Caballé suffered a stroke in Yekaterinburg and was quickly transferred to the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona.
Source: “Montserrat Caballé” (Wikipedia)
In his Literary Life, [Joseph] Brodsky’s friend Lev Loseff explained the background of “A Halt in the Desert,” a poem about the destruction of a beautiful old building: “One night Brodsky watched the first stages in the razing of the Greek Orthodox church from the apartment of his friends, two sisters from a Tatar family,” and called the poem “a meditation on the symbolic significance of what has just happened: Russia has broken with its Christian and Hellenistic cultural heritage.” Brodsky writes:
So few Greeks live in Leningrad today
that we have razed a Greek church, to make space
for a new concert hall, built in today’s
grim and unhappy style. . . .
it is sad that from this distance now
we see, not the familiar onion domes,
but a grotesquely flattened silhouette.
The deliberately created “fresh ruins” and “open altar wounds” recall the recent wartime devastations. The biblical allusion in “Thou who doest sow” suggests the threat of retribution in Hosea 8:7, “they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Brodsky concludes by hopelessly asking:
What lies ahead? Does a new epoch wait
for us? And if it does, what duty do we owe?–
What sacrifices must we make for it?
Loseff claimed that Brodsky condemns “the collective guilt of a nation that produced this regime, that refused to accept the historical alternative, the heritage of Greece and Greek democracy.” But the Russians did not refuse to accept the heritage of Greece. They were not consulted and had no choice. An atheistic Communist system had been imposed on them by deadly force after the Revolution of 1917 and brutally maintained by all successive regimes. It was now the poet’s responsibility to preserve this culture.
Source: Jeffrey Meyers, “Brodsky’s Travels: From Leningrad to Venice,” Fortnightly Review, 8 November 2020
