Valery Gergiev conducts Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain and Wagner’s Parsifal Act III

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Thursday 12 March 2009, 7.30pm, Barbican

DUTILLEUX Tout un monde lointain
WAGNER Parsifal (Act III)

Valery Gergiev conductor (pictured)
Tim Hugh cello
Sergey Semishkur Parsifal
René Pape Gurnemanz
Evgeny Nitkin Amfortas
London Symphony Chorus
Sponsored by Canon Europe

The great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich commissioned Henri Dutilleux to write Tout un monde lointain, now an important work in the cello repertoire. Rostropovich gave the world premiere at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July 1970.

Following his success at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, LSO Principal Cellist Tim Hugh has enjoyed an international career as soloist while maintaining his position with the LSO. He has worked as soloist with many of the great conductors including Previn, Haitink, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Rostropovich, Menuhin, Harding, Xavier-Roth, Chung and Tortelier. His recordings of Brahms Double and Beethoven Triple with the LSO, Bernard Haitink, Gordan Nikolitch and Lars Vogt are released by LSO Live.

The final act of Wagner’s final opera, written in 1882, concludes an epic tale about the knights of the holy grail, which culminates at Easter. After years of desolation, the orphan and holy fool Parsifal brings absolution to the knights and their wounded leader Amfortas. As a messianic allegory of sin, redemption and deep compassion, the opera still causes regular controversy – but audiences are swept up by its musical mysticism, its weave of sacred and profane.

Born in Kirov, tenor Sergey Semishkur graduated from the Nizhny-Novgorod State Glinka Conservatoire in 2003. He joined the Mariinksy Academy of Young Singers as a soloist and was a prize-winner at the International Lisitsian Competition that same year. He has been a Mariinsky Theatre Soloist since 2007.

René Pape is one of the leading international basses of the younger generation and has performed in all the major opera houses in Europe, Japan and at the Metropolitan New York. He made his debut at the Berlin State Opera in 1998 whilst still a student and has been a member of the Company ever since.

Valery Gergiev has been Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra since January 2007 and has recorded the complete Mahler Symphony Cycle for release on LSO Live. Maestro Gergiev is also Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre and Conductor of the World Orchestra for Peace (founded by Sir Georg Solti in 1995). He is Founder and Artistic Director of the Stars of the White Nights Festival, the Moscow Easter Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, the Mikkeli International Festival, the Red Sea Festival and the New Horizons Festival, the latter of which is a contemporary music festival in the Mariinsky Theatre’s new Concert Hall.

Artist Conversation with Valery Gergiev, 12 March 2009, 4pm-5.30pm, LSO St Luke’s LSO Principal Conductor Valery Gergiev discusses his Émigré series, which looks at the effect on the work of composers forced to leave their homeland, including Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. Tickets are free but booking is essential. To book please call the Barbican Box Office on 020 7638 8891. Supported by The Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Tickets to Barbican concerts: £7 - £32 Secure online booking at
    lso.co.uk (£1.50 booking fee)
Box office: 020 7638 8891
    open 9am – 8pm Mon-Sat
    11am – 8pm Sun (£2.50 booking fee)
In person at the Advance Box Office in the Barbican centre
    (Mon-Sat 9am – 9pm; Sun 12pm – 9pm)

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