Thanks to Arte Live Web, you can see the entire two-hour opening gala last week of the $700 million Mariinsky 2 Theater, Valery Gergiev both feted and conducting the concert on his 60th birthday. Streaming may be stop-and-go — it was for me on DSL, with 10 Mbps — so good luck! Free registration may help things along.
In the audience: President Putin, seated next to Maya Plisetskaya. Putin and Gergiev go all the way back to the days when St. Petersburg was Leningrad, Putin the city's deputy mayor, Gergiev just starting under the guidance of Yuri Temirkanov.
On the stage: a sensational program performed by stars of the present and of the future. There are some young Russian singers and those not quite well known in the West who are jawdropping good.
The hall itself is fascinating, but relatively sedate compared to what it might have been, as described by Louise Levene in The Telegraph.
The original proposal, a fashionably outrageous structure by Biblioteque Nationale designer Dominique Perrault, ran into budgetary and constructional difficulties. Perrault's 'golden potato' was abandoned and the Canadian architect Jack Diamond was called in to complete the project with his trademark blend of limestone, blonde wood, and plate glass.Most 21st-century theaters occupy their sites like an alien landing, crouching on their footprint like crumpled tin cans or great glass eggs but Diamond has no time for that sort of attention-seeking: 'Architecture should be strong but we don't want to hit you in the eye. We have enough of those buildings in the world now; it's like a joke: Next time you hear it it's not so funny.' Gergiev had been especially impressed by the exemplary acoustics and no-nonsense functionality of other Diamond theatres like the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto.
Great sound, near-perfect sightlines and high technology were clearly the great conductor's priorities but Mariinsky 2 needed to be more than a machine for music-making. St Petersburg's harmonious proportions and almost organic building style can make any modern structure seem like an act of vandalism — even today brand-new apartment blocks are clad in a faux nineteenth century manner. Jack Diamond was given the full tour and made keenly conscious of the need to respect 'probably the most beautiful city in the world'.
Although he resisted pressure to conceal his ultra modern theatrical machine behind a baroque or neo classical facade, he made far more fuss of the old building than his predecessor, ensuring that the public spaces and rehearsal rooms and the breathtaking rooftop amphitheater all had glorious views of the old Mariinsky. Even the interior walls were scumbled to match the parent building's pistachio paintwork.
Lining the lobbies with back-lit panels of honey onyx mimics the imperial largesse of the Tsar's Amber Room at Tsarkoe Seloe and the auditorium even boasts a VIP area to parallel the Tsar's box complete with private entrance and private sitting room. Such arrangements seem calculatedly presidential but at Thursday's gala Mr. Putin chose to demonstrate the 'democratic' vibe that characterises the new building by descending from the stage after his speech, glad-handing his way through the stalls and taking his seat in the fourteenth row.