It was 01:01 am Moscow time, and 23:01 Berlin time, when the capitulation of the Third Reich was signed in the presence of the Supreme Commander of the Red Army Gueorgui Zhukov ...
This is why the Victory Day is celebrated, in Russia, on May 9 and not on 8. Awe-inspiring ceremony point this year, on Red Square, but for the occasion, today and then replayed on the site of Saisons Russes (www.russianseasons.org), this initiative of the Russian Ministry of Culture created to promote its culture abroad, and particularly in France this year, retransmissions of 2019 events and concerts performed these days- These online will celebrate the end of World War II.
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The celebration of the Allied victory will therefore be above all musical. But not only that: the French public, deprived of the traditional military parade of May 8 on the Champs Élysées, will be able to admire the incredible closing ceremony of the 7th military music festival, a gigantic musical and choreographic "battle" held on Red Square in May 2019, by more than thirty military orchestras and other musical ensembles, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Chinese, North and South Korean, Egyptian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Norwegian, Russian and Turkish. A thousand nine hundred and twenty-two artists in total, parading and playing on stage, in an atmosphere that is both good-natured and colorful.
Music lovers will then happily find the cloudy and talented maestro Valeri Guerguiev, artistic director of the Mariinsky theater in Saint Petersburg, for the concert he led on December 15, 2019, in the great hall of the Konzerthaus in Berlin, as part of the German edition of the “Russian Seasons” festival: the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Rachmaninov and the Ballet Suite of the “Firebird” by Igor Stravinsky, performed by the orchestra of the Musical Academy Russian-German, with pianist Denis Matsouïev as soloist. This musical academy brings together young talents from the biggest German and Russian orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Staatskapelle in Berlin and Dresden, and the Mariinsky Theater.
It was this Russian-German Musical Academy which was to perform, on May 8 at 7 p.m. (Paris time) a “tribute concert” to the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, recorded from several different places, which will the spotlight on German and Russian composers from the classical and romantic eras (Bach, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Moussorgsky, Rachmaninov), as well as Olivier Messiaen, for his Quartet for the end of time , composed while he was a prisoner camp concentration in 1941, and to the American composer Samuel Barber for his poignant Adagio (1936).
The music of the instruments will introduce that of the words. The German actor Martin Wuttke and the Russian actress Elizaveta Boïarskaïa will read the works of those who were, during the war, three young women fighting, by their poetry, for peace and human dignity: two Russians, emblematic figures of the blockade of Leningrad: Anna Akhmanova, who dedicated her collection of Requiem poems to her city , and which Soljenystine had described as "the soul of Russia" , and the journalist and scriptwriter Olga Bergholtz; On the German side, Ingeborg Bachmann, who was alone in Klagenfurt during heavy Allied bombing, who then wrote: "I made the firm decision to continue reading when the bombs fall."
“ Together in difficult times ”: this is the title of this concert not to be missed to celebrate this 75th anniversary with dignity.
On the sidelines of this exceptional program wanted by Mr. Alexei Lebedev, director of "Russian Seasons", convinced that "music is a great unifying spiritual force and that it has the power to help people become more human", Russian seasons put online, three times a week, in their "Stay Home" section, concerts, theater, artistic performances of exceptional quality. Special mention for the breathtaking musical performance on ice "Romeo and Juliet", performed in the arenas of Verona: costumes, music, sets, choreography, virtuosity: an enchantment.
The link to follow the Victory concert
