Hermitage Theatre of Classical Russian Ballet
St. Petersburg State Governor’s Symphony orchestra presents

Gaetano Donizetti’s

PIETRO IL GRANDE

IL FALEGNAME DI LIVONIA, OSSIA PIETRO IL GRANDE

Comic melodrama in two acts

10 October 2013 (Thu), 19:00

Libretto by Gherardo Bevilacqua Aldobrandini
Libretti for the Italian & Russian versions by Yuri Dimitrin

(11 characters, 34 musicians & 8 chorus singers)
Project and staging by Yuri Alexandrov
Premiere: 27 May 2003

In 1819 the young, as-yet unknown Donizetti, delighted with Alexandre Duval’s fashionable play Le Menuisier de Livonie, created a brilliant opera-buffa. It remains a mystery why, after the triumphant 1823 premiere at the Teatro Comunale, Gaetano Donizetti’s opera was never performed again.
Artistic Director of the St. Petersburg Chamber Opera Yuri Alexandrov spent three years in search of the score for Pietro, which, so it appeared, had been lost forever. The painstaking work yielded results – the score was restored fragment by fragment. The audience will discover much that is unexpected in the interpretation of the image of Peter the Great and of Russian history. The St. Petersburg Chamber Opera has restored Donizetti’s tour de force to its rightful place.