Benvenuto Cellini: teaser of the new production by Alexei Frandetti

The first premiere of the 239th season at the Mariinsky Theatre is to be Hector Berlioz’ Benvenuto Cellini. On 10 November at the new theatre stage director Alexei Frandetti will present his version of the story of the famous Renaissance-era sculptor. The productions team includes set designer Vyacheslav Okunev, costume designer Viktoria Sevryukova, lighting designer Gleb Filshtinsky and choreographer Irina Kashuba. The Musical Director of the production is Valery Gergiev. The next performances are to take place on 11 and 14 November.

Theatre and film director Alexei Frandetti, a Golden Mask recipient runs parallels between the story of the creation of the legendary statue of Perseus — and the story of the filming of Federico Fellini’s cult classic 8½ at Cinecittà film studios in Rome. “The thought came from the idea Berlioz instilled in the opera, and before that in the memoirs of Cellini. It is an idea for an artistic search, a creative crisis and the painful birth of the right idea and a work of art,” Frandetti says. The production makes use of quotations from many of Fellini’s films: here we have not just 8½, but La strada and La dolce vita as well.

In this new production, Benvenuto Cellini is a film director resembling Fellini; a genius who is able to create only in circumstances that are totally extreme for him. Rehearsing to appear at the Mariinsky Theatre in the title role are the tenors Alexander Mikhailov, Sergei Semishkur, Ivan Gyngazov and Mikhail Vekua.

Benvenuto Cellini belongs to the rare genre of opera semi-seria, or “semi-serious” opera. Its main concept is entirely serious: it deals with genius and creativity, the place of the artist in society, about the value of a work of art. But here the drama sits alongside the comedy, the lyrical heroes alongside the buffo characters, real people alongside carnival masks. In this opera there are fully-developed arias of reflective heroes, ensembles that are mind-boggling and Mozartian in spirit and grandiose choral scenes. Benvenuto Cellini is also a celebration of the orchestra; Berlioz produced a score filled with dazzling timbre innovations.
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We thank the Saint Petersburg Documentary Films Studio "Lendoc" for the assistance in filming this video.