French Night
Alexander Melnikov and a night of impression, romance, and dance
The opening concert, called French Night, will bring the festival back to the magical scenery of the Summer Riding School after several years. The piece To the Stars by Henri Duparc will open its starry sky with original choreography by world-renown Jiří Bubeníček. An excellent pianist Alexander Melnikov will perform Piano Concerto No. 5 by Camille Saint-Saëns called Egyptian. Longing for travel and distances will guide us further with Claude Debussy’s composition The Sea. The evening will rise to crescendo with a captivating melody of Maurice Ravel’s Bolero with a stirring performance by Europe’s leading ballet soloists.
The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra will perform under the baton of its main guest conductor, Robert Jindra. The music by the composers from La République shall commemorate one of the key dates in European history – 14 July 1789 – the Storming of the Bastille.
The festival is held under the auspices of the Embassy of the French Republic.
Artists
Alexander Melnikov – piano
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
Robert Jindra – conductor
Jiří Bubeníček – choreography
Les Ballets Bubeníček – ballet ensemble: Léonore Baulac, Jenny Laudadio, István Simon, Jón Vallejo, Joseph Gray, Rodrigo Pinto, Christian Bauch, and others.
Bubeníček Ballet Masterclasses – selected participants (organized by J. Bubeníček and Festival Krumlov)
Program
H. Duparc: Poéme nocturne – Aux étoiles
C. Saint-Saëns: Piano concerto No 5 in F Major, op. 103 „Egyptian“
intermission
C. Debussy: La Mer, L 109
M. Ravel: Bolero C Major, op. 81
Alexander Melnikov
Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov began studying music at the age of 6 at the Moscow Central School of Music. Melnikov showed talent at an early age, playing the first concert of Sergei Rachmaninov at the age of 12. He continued at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Lev Naumov, graduating in 1997. Competition in Brussels in 1991. Alexander Melnikov has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Philadelphia Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, HR-Sinfonieorchester, Munich Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic and the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Mikhail Pletnev, Teodor Currentzis, Charles Dutoit and Paavo Järvi.
Jiří Bubeníček
Internationally acclaimed choreographer Jiří Bubeníček has enjoyed enormous recognition as one of the world’s finest ballet dancers during his nearly twenty-five-year career. Although his first choreographies were created more as a small-scale expert, today he is one of the most sought-after choreographers of our time. He has created works for companies such as San Francisco Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Teatro di Roma, Tokyo City Ballet, New York City Ballet, Vienna State Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, Semperoper Ballet in Dresden, Mariinsky Ballet Theater, etc. He was also the choreographer of the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert 2016 and won, among others, the “Europa in Danza” award for his version of “Carmen” (2019), the “Boris Papandopulo” award for “Romeo and Juliet” for the best ballet performance in the 2021/22 season.
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra is one of the most important contemporary Czech orchestras. Since the 2022/2023 season, the post of chief conductor and artistic director has been held by the Czech conductor Petr Popelka. The post of Principal Guest Conductor was taken by Robert Jindra. Over the past few years, the orchestra has collaborated with leading Czech and foreign conductors such as Tomáš Netopil, Petr Altrichter, Jakub Hrůša, Cornelius Meister, Alexander Liebreich, Ilan Volkov, Stephan Asbury, Ion Marin, Michał Nesterowicz, Anu Tali and Wayne Marshall. Among the soloists accompanied by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra was the pianist Krystian Zimerman, violinists Leila Josefowicz and Pierre Amoyal, cellists Gautier Capuçon, István Várdai and Steven Isserlis, trombonist Christian Lindberg, but also jazzman Avishai Cohen. Singers include Renée Fleming, Elīna Garanča, Asmik Grigorian, José Cura, Juan Diego Flórez, Dmitri Khvorostovsky and Jonas Kaufmann.
Robert Jindra
Since the 2022/23 season, conductor Robert Jindra has been music director of the National Theatre Opera in Prague and principal guest conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.
He studied classical singing and conducting at the Prague Conservatory. At the National Theatre he conducted the world premiere of Tomáš Hanzlík ‘s opera The Tears of Alexander the Great, as well as Smetana’s Two Widows and Mozart‘s Così fan tutte and many others. In the 2013/2014 season, he served as music director of the National Theatre Opera, conducting new productions of Janáček s The Cunning Little Vixen and From the House of the Dead. Between 2010 and 2014, he was music director of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava, where he conducted Smetana’s The Devil’s Wall, Dvořák ’s Armida, Janáček ’s Jenůfa and The Makropulos Affair, Wagner’s Lohengrin, Verdi’s Falstaff and many other operas. He has collaborated with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, worked at the Aalto-Musiktheater und Philharmonie Essen, conducted at the Norwegian Opera in Oslo (Jenůfa, 2022), the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava (Verdi: La traviata) and the State Theatre Košice. In 2021, he conducted Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Bayerische Staatsoper within the Munich Opera Festival and made his debut with Weinberger ’s Schwanda the Bagpiper at the Oper Graz. In 2022, he conducted The Cunning Little Vixen at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Since the start of the 2021/22 season, he has been chief conductor of the Košice State Philharmonic.
Summer Riding Hall
Present At present, the Summer Riding Hall hosts not only wedding ceremonies, but also cultural and social events, “nocturnes”, garden parties, theater and ballet productions, and above all, concerts as part of the International Music Festival. You will have an unforgettable experience from an evening that combines music and romantic scenery. The space itself provides […]
