February 22, 2017
Feb. 10 & 11 Professor Jay Reise's opera Rasputin was performed in Moscow's new state-of-the-art Stravinsky Hall, home of the Helikon Opera Theater just outside the Kremlin. Dmitry Bertman's spectacular production, with a new stellar cast (headed by Grigory Soloviev in the title role who was heard recently in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Shostakovich's The Nose), was led by Australian conductor Alexander Briger.
Commissioned by Beverly Sills and premiered by the New York City Opera in 1988, Rasputin is celebrating its 10th anniversary in the Helikon repertory. It is the only American opera ever to have been produced by a Russian opera company and has travelled to Opéra Massy in Paris and the Saaremaa Opera Festival in Estonia.