The Manoel Theatre will open the 2010-2011 season with a grand vocal and instrumental concert on Friday, 1 October at 8pm. The programme is divided into two; the first half will feature Russian music, mainly various arias and duets from operas by Tchaikovsky, with the second half dedicated to Puccini. The two singers are both from Russia, soprano Elena Evseeva and tenor Oleg Kulko. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra will be under the direction of Brian Schembri. The Tchaikovsky half features the very popular Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet and vocal excerpts from the operas Pikoyava Dama (The Queen of Spades) and Iolanta. In the Puccini half the intermezzo La Tregenda from Le Villi will be performed while the vocal pieces are from Tosca as well as the whole fourth act from Manon Lescaut.

Paris-based Maltese conductor-pianist Brian Schembri needs little introduction to local audiences. After completing advanced studies in Russia, he has carved a successful career conducting various prestigious orchestras abroad and is a frequent visitor to his home country.

Soprano Elena Evseeva is enjoying a flourishing career including performances at her native Moscow’s Bolshoi Opera where she is on the official soloists’ list. At the beginning of her career she was awarded various prizes in singing competitions such as the Glinka in Russia, the Vienna Belvedere, the Moniuszko in Warsaw and the Bellini in Catania. She worked with Carlo Bergonzi in Spoleto and scored a success at Siena’s Accademia Chigiana. She was later a soloist at Moscow’s Novaya Opera. Evseeva made her New York Metropolitan Opera debut in 1999 as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello. Later she also sang at the Bastille Opera of Paris, in Strasbourg and various other opera houses. Her repertoire includes Tchaikovsky’s Pikoyava Dama, Mazeppa, Yevgeny Onyegin and Iolanta; Borodin’s Prince Igor, many of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas including Sadko and Snegorouchka, Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila, Mussorgsky’s Khovanschina and Rakhmaninov’s Aleko. Among non-Russian roles she has scored various successes in Mozart’s Requiem and Le nozze di Figaro, Puccini’s La Bohème, Manon Lescaut, Edgar, Turandot (as Liù), Madama Butterfly and in Verdi’s La Traviata, Luisa Miller, Simon Boccanegra, Don Carlo and the Requiem. A recent article regarding Evseeva in Kultura says that “….she has a unique timbre, possesses an unsurpassed singing skill, perfect intonation and changes from coloratura passages to dramatic ones very easily”.

Tenor Oleg Kulko, a Bolshoi soloist since 1988, graduated from Kiev’s Conservatory and made his debut at the Kiev Opera two years before in 1986. His performances include Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mlada, Tchaikosky’s The Maid of Orleans and Pikoyava Dama, (the first two of which have been recorded and released on DVD), Borodin’s Prince Igor, Verdi’s Il Trovatore and Aida, Puccini’s Tosca and Turandot and Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. He has been on tour with the Bolshoi Opera at the Teatro alla Scala, the Edinburgh Festival and in Glasgow. He also took part in concert performances of Tosca and Aida at the Royal Albert Hall, has sung Calaf in Turandot in Taiwan and Lithuania and also Lensky in Yevgeny Onyegin in Montpelier. He has sung Manrico in Cagliari and Charles VII in The Maid of Orleans at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Paolo in Rakhmaninov’s Francesca da Rimini at the Avery Fisher Hall, Loris in Fedora (Teatro alla Scala) as well as Turiddu and Canio in Macao. He joined the Metropolitan Opera and Washington Opera during the 2002-3 season. He has sung in La fanciulla del West in Prague, in Aida in Hong Kong, in A bride for the Tsar at the Bolshoi Opera and in Carmen at the Lithuanian National Opera of Vilnius.

Booking: [email protected] Tel: 2124 6389, Fax: 2124 7451. Visit also www.teatrumanoel.com.mt