CULTURE

The return of the salon

St. Petersburg’s cultural elite is recreating the tradition of the evening salon with the help of an Italian maestro.

By Larisa Doctorow

The St. Petersburg Times

For The St. Petersburg Times Tenor Vladimir Cheberyak.

If you have ever dreamed of being invited to an elegant drawing room and finding yourself among like-minded guests, attending a concert where the finest opera music is performed by renowned opera singers from Russia and Italy, and concluding the evening exchanging views with the musicians and other guests — all while gazing out at the enchanting panorama of a city that Italian architects helped to create, and listening to music to which Italian musicians made a significant contribution — then a new initiative titled, “The Vernissage of Arts. An invitation from Fabio Mastrangelo to performances of Russian and Italian opera singers” should be just your cup of tea.

The management of the Ambassador Hotel, which is sponsoring these events, aims to bring together the performing arts and fine arts in order to recreate the atmosphere of the evening salons of the past, where music and art met.

During the course of this year, there will be ten such evenings, the first one having taken place on Sept. 15. The timing was excellent, given that the event took place just before the beginning of the new theater season, when a number of arts festivals are launched all at once.

Anatoly Sharapov, the Ambassador Hotel’s general manager, said he and his team were inspired to sponsor a musical event by their address on Prospekt Rimskogo-Korsakova, the street named after the great composer. The hotel found willing support from City Hall and recruited Italian maestro Fabio Mastrangelo to take control of the artistic direction. The performances are structured around soloists of both Russian and Italian opera houses, as well as musicians from the St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk Philharmonics. Mastrangelo is an accomplished musician with broad international experience. After studying in Italy, Switzerland, England and Canada, he worked in Toronto, Arena di Verona and Nice. In his native Italy, he is now the main guest conductor of the opera house in Bari.

The maestro has been living and working in Russia for seven years, conducting orchestras across the country. He recently announced to journalists that from the start of this season he has been appointed principal conductor of the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater. In spite of his busy schedule, Mastrangelo has promised to devote time and effort to formulating and arranging monthly musical events at the Ambassador Hotel.

At a press conference, the organizers explained how the project should evolve: “We don’t want these evenings to turn into club entertainment with a list of members, annual fees and so on. We hope to keep it informal. At the initial stage, entrance is free and will be by invitation only, because we need to see how our idea will be accepted and to prepare the next steps.

“We are also launching this initiative as a precursor to a much bigger project. At present, we are involved in a project to renovate a building close to the hotel that we hope to turn into a large concert hall with a seating capacity of 800 people. After the renovation is completed, we will have great opportunities to invite both top names and young talents and entertain people.”

For The St. Petersburg Times Cheberyak is currently a soloist at a leading Yekaterinburg theater.

For the inaugural evening, Mastrangelo invited his compatriot, the soprano Daniela Schillaci, who is a soloist with the National Theater of Rome and Malibran theater in Venice to participate. Schillaci was joined by two soloists from Yekaterinburg: The tenor Vladimir Cheberyak, and soprano Yekaterina Neizhmak. The three singers performed arias and duets from Italian and Russian operas. During the two-hour-long concert, Mastrangelo accompanied his singers in the Italian repertoire and entertained the public with his favorite arias from Russian and Italian operas, focusing respectively on Tchaikovsky and Puccini.

Neizhmak needs no introduction to the St. Petersburg audiences, who have often heard her perform at the Mikhailovky Theater.

After Schillaci dazzled the audience with an aria from Tosca — “Vissi d’arte” — Mastrangelo regaled the audience with a bit of local color, saying: “Imagine how she would have sung if she had had a normal night’s sleep!” It turned out that the Italian soprano had only received her entry visa for Russia in Moscow at five in the morning on the day of the concert — after spending the whole night in Sheremetyevo airport. Needless to say, she was heartened to hear promises from City Hall to grant her a multi-entry visa for future visits.

Vladimir Cheberyak told The St. Petersburg Times that he was very satisfied with the first concert, saying it could be described as “a calling card for Siberian singers.” His hit of the evening was Lensky’s aria from the opera “Eugene Onegin,” which won strong audience approval. Since his graduation from Omsk University in 2001, where he studied both stage directing and singing, his career has gone from strength to strength. He has amassed enviable experience working in Kaliningrad and now Yekaterinburg, where he has been a soloist since 2006.

The concert concluded with a scene from Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades,” performed by Cheberyak and Neizhmak. Their emotional singing and compelling acting caused the audience to forget that this was a concert and not a staged rendition.

Cheberyak is back in St. Petersburg this weekend to sing the title role in Verdi’s “Don Carlos” at the Conservatory Theater on Saturday.

In addition to music, guests at the opening event had the chance to appreciate work by St. Petersburg painter Vitaly Kasatkin, who specializes in relief painting and whose workshop continues the tradition of his family — who combined the images of Russia and Italy.

More stories by this section:

Chernov’s choice | Lady in red | Going rustic | In the Spotlight: Slutsker vs. Slutsker

Or take part in the discussion below.