Shostakovich
Lonquich, Elbert, Guzzo, Altstaedt

Anna-Lena Elbert, soprano

Giovanni Guzzo, violin

Nicolas Altstaedt, cello

Alexander Lonquich, piano

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)

Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, Op. 127

30' | Ticket €12

The Teatro Bibiena is immersed in the dark atmospheres narrated by Alexander Blok through the sonic journey traced by Dmitri Shostakovich. The path of these seven romances begins with Pesnja Ofelii (Ophelia’s Song), where soprano and cello open the work with a Russian folk-like lament. The same character, carried forward in Gamajun (The Prophetic Bird), gives way to the memory of a transfigured love in the broad melodic line first shaped by the violin and then taken up by the soprano in My byli vmeste (We Were Together).

It is then time for repose with Gorod spit (The City Sleeps), whose expanded sense of time emerges through the device of three distinct timbral layers that never fully meet. Suddenly, we are seized by the furious allegro of Burja (The Storm), marked by the dissonances of piano and violin. The tonal ambiguity of Tajnyje znaki (Secret Signs) and its extensive chromaticism lead us to the threshold of twelve-tone language. Finally, Muzyka (Music) raises an existential question that remains unanswered, yielding instead to the concluding silence, which gradually advances through pianissimo and morendo.

In this concert, these extraordinary performers will evoke the nocturnal and mystical atmospheres that Shostakovich transformed into a kind of spiritual “confession” about life, death, and the redemptive power of art. An unmissable event.

Text by Martina Sangermano