As a singer, she could very well sing the title role in The Queen of Spades herself, but in recent years she has added the conductor's card to her game. We asked Nathalie Stutzmann during the piano rehearsals for our new production about the incredible richness of Tchaikovsky's score.
Concerts for the greats of the earth and a decades-long career at the upper echelons of the opera world. Are we talking about Anne Sofie von Otter here or the Countess in The Queen of Spades? It seems as if Tchaikovsky had the Swedish grande dame in mind when he composed his opera, and yet she is only now debuting the role – at La Monnaie.
No luck in love without luck in play. This is the idée fixe that Hermann is pursuing in Pikovaya Dama. He overplays his hand and eventually loses both the game and love, but by then we are already three hours into glowingly intense music...
Yours truly, P. Tchaikovsky
Read along in the composer's correspondence and find out how The Queen of Spades came into being, an opera that was actually not intended for him...
In the very same year his homeland was dragged into the bloodiest conflict in its history, Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko (21) forced his artistic breakthrough. In this interview, he reflects on the often neglected yet stunningly beautiful music of Ukraine, the risks of a concerto for one hand and the presence of hundreds of his compatriots during his upcoming La Monnaie concert.
