The Twentieth Century Approaches

Debussy and Schoenberg: Two masterpieces of modern musical theatre under the baton of Fedor Lednev.

Programme

Claude Debussy (1862—1918)—Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, 1894/1920
Based on an eclogue by Stéphane Mallarmé

Arnold Schoenberg (1874—1951)
Erwartung, Op. 17, 1909–1924 / 1999–2004
Monodrama for voice and twenty performers, text by Maria Pappenheim
Arrangement for chamber orchestra by Faradzh Karaev (b. 1943)

Claude Debussy’s symphonic poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), inspired by a poem on an ancient theme by the symbolist writer Stéphane Mallarmé, is a landmark work that defined the path of musical modernism. Its place in history was adequately described by the composer and conductor Pierre Boulez: “The opening bars of the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune serves as a point of reference to all who seek to establish the birth certificate of what is still called ‘contemporary’ music.” Such, indeed, was the perception of this piece not only by Debussy’s descendants, but also by his near contemporaries: Arnold Schoenberg, often considered the father of new music, worked with his students to create a chamber version of the work for performance by the Vienna Society for Private Musical Performances. The Prélude experienced a rebirth in 1912 in the ballet by Vaslav Nijinsky, staged to Debussy’s music and premiered in Paris as part of Diaghilev’s Saisons russes. This paean to sweet idleness shocked audiences by its sensuality and provoked the first major artistic scandal in Diaghilev’s career as impresario. Since that time various outstanding choreographers, from Jerome Robbins and Maurice Béjart to Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, have turned to the score, making it a symbol of the contemporary music scene.

Performed by

Fedor Lednev conductor

Ekaterina Protsenko soprano

Boulez Ensemble

Anna Komarova flute
Andrei Matiukhin oboe
Mikhail Beznosov clarinet
Vasily Chernyatin clarinet
Maximilian Katenin bassoon
Valery Zhavoronkov horn
Sergey Vaskovich horn
Andrey Dyomin trumpet
Maksim Starshinov trombone
Ivan Svatkovsky tuba
Alexander Suvorov percussion
Evsevy Zubkov percussion
Philipp Fitin percussion
Maria Sadurdinova harmonium, celeste
Alexandra Sambir piano
Luiza Mintsaeva harp
Vladislav Pesin violin
Mikhail Feiman violin*
Andrey Usov viola*
Arseny Beznosikov cello*
Mikhail Shevnin double bass

Bogdan Korolyok concert host

* Members of Pritiazhenie (“Attraction”) Creative Association

Photo: Anya Todich

Less is more: the formula coined by the modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe well encapsulates what happened to opera and ballet at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Time quickened and was compressed: while Richard Wagner’s Parsifal (1882) takes over five hours to perform, Richard Strauss’s Elektra (1903) lasts only a hundred minutes, and Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung (1909) is over in half an hour, being performed by a single singer.

The arrangement of Erwartung for chamber ensemble by our contemporary, Faradj Karaev, is in the best traditions of Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances. Schoenberg himself called his first opera a “nightmare”. Like Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, the action of Erwartung unfolds on the border between sleep and reality. The figure of the heroine is stripped of individual features, of flesh and character: Schoenberg strives to portray the existential essence of a “generalised human being”. A woman wanders alone in a dark forest, searching for her beloved, and eventually finds him murdered. The plot of the monodrama is summarised in a single sentence, but the hidden agenda of the work is far more important. Erwartung is a manifesto of musical expressionism, imbued with anxious expectation of a new era.

Fedor Lednev (b. 1971, Minsk) is a conductor. He graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory specialising in choral conducting (1995) and operatic and symphonic conducting (1998). Since 1995, he has taught at the Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov Music College. He has appeared as guest conductor with leading Russian orchestras, including the Svetlanov State Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, the musicAeterna Choir and Orchestra, and others. In 2024, he won the prize for Best Conductor at the Golden Mask theatre awards in Moscow.

Ekaterina Protsenko (b. 1991, Taganrog) is a singer. She studied with Irina Bogacheva at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and graduated in 2021 from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (classes of Edith Lienbacher and Florian Boesch). In 2020–2023, she was a soloist at the Theater an der Wien (Vienna), performing the roles of Euridice in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Gipsipila in Cavalli’s Jason and others. She has been a soloist at the Perm Opera since the 2023/2024 season. Ekaterina Protsenko has performed at prominent venues including the Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna, and the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf. In 2025, she was shortlisted for the Golden Mask theatre award in Moscow.

Bogdan Korolyok (b. 1993, Omsk) is a curator and a music and theatre critic. He is assistant artistic director of the ballet company at the Ural Opera Ballet Theatre. He graduated from the Krasnoyarsk College of Choreography (class of Ivan Karnaukhov), obtained a bachelor’s degree in arts and humanities at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet and a master’s degree in music criticism at Saint Petersburg State University. He created librettos for Le Divertissement du Roi at the Mariinsky Theatre (choreographed by Maxim Petrov, 2017/2021) and for The Order of the King (2018), The Humpbacked Horse (2021, with choreographer Vyacheslav Samodurov) and The Tales of Pierrot (2024, with choreographer Maxim Petrov) at the Ural Opera Ballet Theatre. He was co-author of the libretto and assistant director of the ballet The Humpbacked Horse (2025) at the Bolshoi Theatre, and wrote the libretto for A Guide to Ballet at the Perm Opera Ballet Theatre (2021, choreographed by Anton Pimonov).