Opera written by Catherine II will be presented in St. Petersburg

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

In September, St. Petersburg will host the 18th Earlymusic festival of early music, in which the public is promised a truly royal premiere. The audience will be presented with the comic opera "Woe-Bogatyr Kosometovich", which was co-authored by Catherine the Great herself several centuries ago.

The opera will be presented at the Hermitage Theater, where it premiered 290 years ago; on October 5 and 8, the performance can be heard in the Chapel of St. Petersburg. The production is being performed by the collective of the "Soloists of Catherine the Great" ensemble, created in 2002 by violinist Andrei Reshetin, who is the artistic director of Earlymusic, writes Newsru.com.

The Soloists of Catherine the Great is a Russian ensemble specializing in historical performance.

The opera "Woe-Bogatyr Kosometovich" was written by the Russian Empress in collaboration with the composer Martin y Soler in 1788. Its main character, the son of the queen of Arzamas Lokmeta, succumbs to the persuasion of buffoons and is going to the thirtieth kingdom for feats of arms. But the friends of the would-be hero, the courtiers Torop and Krivomozg, are trying to deceive him so as not to leave anywhere.

According to one of the widespread versions, this plot was intended to depict the Swedish king Gustav and his unsuccessful attempt to attack Russia in 1788 in the hope that the main forces of his enemy were connected with the war with Turkey. However, after the first viewing of the opera, Prince Potemkin opposed the public staging of the play, and then a rumor appeared that it was Potemkin who was the hero of the Empress's work.