Delos Diary - The War Songs Tour VI

Delos Insider

Constantine Orbelian's tight schedcule of concerts and travel has delayed the final two chapters of his "Tale of Eight Cities… the Hvorostovsky-Orbelian Hero Cities Tour."
Here, at last, is his account of the concert in city No. 7, Ekaterinburg, scheduled for Thursday, June 9.
Constantine describes the colorful and tragic history of thisfascinating locale just beyond the Ural Mountains. His narrative, which combines history, personal anecdotes, and a review of the concert itself, is vivid and perceptive. The reader gets a unique picture of great artists, welcomed, feted and fed, and deeply appreciated by an adoring public fully aware of the fact that they are participating in a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Ekaterinburg

We arrived at the VIP section of the Novosibirsk airport and checked in for our early afternoon departure for Ekaterinburg. We landed in Ekaterinburg at the same time we departed because of the two-hour time change and we were whisked away to the Governor’s guest house, where we were to spend the next two days.

Our afternoon was planned out to the minute with a wonderful lunch prepared by Governor Eduard Rossel’s very capable and hospitable staff, and then we went off to meet the Governor at the Capitol building in the middle of town. Ekaterinburg is a very interesting city, with some architecture left intact from the beginning of the 20th Century and early Soviet Monumental period that is prevalent in the area. Since German WW 2 bombing squadrons never made it out this far, nothing was destroyed and some of the inherent charm of an old style Russian city remains.

Once we arrived at the Capitol building, we were met by the Governor’s press secretary at the entrance, and Dmitri and I were escorted to his study. There were newspaper reporters everywhere and TV cameras as well. We had a few photos taken, and some words were spoken to the TV reporters and then we were left alone with the Governor. Our meeting was brief but very informative. Both Dmitri and I realized in the course of our conversation that this fine gentleman has a will of iron and a fist of steel.

We began our conversation with the usual questions, about how the tour was going and what the public was like in each of the cities. Governor Rossel let us know how delighted he was that Ekaterinburg was put on the itinerary, and explained the significance of the city during the war and what the city had produced for the War effort, as well as how many of its citizens were lost on the front lines. As it turns out, Ekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk during Soviet times, named after the revolutionary Yakov Sverdlov) first became prominent internationally in 1918 because this is where Czar Nicolas II and his entire family were brutally murdered by revolutionaries on the direct order of Vladimir Lenin. There is a beautiful church that has recently opened in the city as a memorial to this tragic event in Russian history. The Memorial Church on the Blood is set on the very spot where the executions took place: the site of the famous Ipatiev house.

Governor Rossel explained that 70% of all of the tanks and aircraft were built in the Sverdlovsk region along with trains and cars, without which of course nothing could have been transported from Siberia to the front lines. I asked the Governor about his background, noting that his name is of German origin. He proceeded to tell us his life’s story. Fascinating isn’t an adequate word to describe this man. I must add that both Dmitri and I have been overwhelmed by the remarkable people we have met on this tour, who have lived in traumatic and unique situations imposed on them by the Soviet regime.

Governor Rossel’s father, as a German, was arrested and executed during the Stalin purges of 1937. He was accused of being an "enemy of the people." All of this took place three months before Eduard’s birth. His mother was arrested as the wife of an "enemy of the people" and sent to a Soviet Gulag (labor camp), where Eduard was born and lived until 1955, when most of the political prisoners were released after Stalin’s death. His mother survived the Gulag with her son. She had been able to educate him in the Gulag in engineering and other areas of knowledge and skill that fellow prisoners were able to teach him. Anyone who has read the books of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for example, would know that the prisoners in these Gulags were not hoodlums, thieves and murderers, but were highly educated people whose ideas differed with the party line or whose personalities threatened Joseph Stalin in one way or another. Little Eduard wasn’t the only kid in the Gulag; there were many of them, but I know of none who have had the brilliant career of this man. He told us of his friendship with Boris Yeltsin, who is also from Sverdlovsk, and was head of the Communist Party there for many years before coming to Moscow in the mid 70s. Bear in mind that the Sverdlovsk region is over twice the size of France and Germany combined. I asked him if someone had written a book about the story of his youth and amazing ascent to power and he said that no one seemed to be interested… I told him that most likely he just hasn’t spoken to the right people.

As Governor Rossel was telling us about his personal ordeal of being born in a Gulag, and of the fate of his parents, I thought of my own grandparents, and the parallels in their story. My grandfather was arrested as an "enemy of the people" in 1936 and then executed at the Liubianka Prison in Moscow on April 20, 1938 under the direct order of Joseph Stalin. My grandmother was arrested as the wife of an "enemy of the people "and given a sentence of 10 years at a Gulag in Karelia (the Russian territory near Finland). My father, who was then a teen-ager, and his younger brother were thrown out of their home and onto the street, and told to fend for themselves. My grandmother survived her ordeal and lived to tell me about it; amazingly, she never said anything negative about her experience in the Gulag. When asked, she would say "You were dead if you lost your sense of humor," and if pressed further, "There was loads of fresh air, and we never overate" — a perfect example of that lifesaving sense of humor. I guess that sums up what life was like there, for a person of strong spirit and the will to survive.

Both Dmitri and I were given gorgeous art books with very warm personal dedications by the Governor as souvenirs of our visit with him. We then proceeded to the press conference. Dmitri and I could barely get into the room where all of the correspondents and TV cameras were waiting for us. We were able to keep the press conference down to 30 minutes, even though each one of the 150 correspondents present wanted a "brief" personal interview, which of course was impossible.

We had a superb dinner in a fantastic restaurant owned by another extraordinary individual who was a General in the Soviet Afghan war of the 1980s, and now heads the Veterans of the Afghan War Association in Russia. His unique restaurant is at the same time a museum of the famous Demidov Iron works factory from the 1800s, which made all of the statues in pre-Revolutionary Russia.

We returned to our Governor’s dacha and had a great night’s sleep after a whirlwind of a day.

I arrived at the Ekaterinburg Palace of Culture at 5 p.m. for our pre-concert rehearsal, and saw that everything was set up and ready to go. The orchestra was on stage and ready for our sound check. Dmitri was in super form, and the evening began at 7 p.m.

This was a multi-purpose concert hall and conference center built in the 1980s. The hall seats around 3,000 people, and the Veterans were decked out in their uniforms with medals shining and their Sunday best!

As I have in every one of the concerts on this tour, I began the program with the Russian National Anthem. Then Governor Rossel came out on stage and introduced us, giving a little background on the history of the event. He welcomed all of the WW 2 Vets in the audience, and reminded the audience of the 300,000 human lives that this city had sacrificed during the war. Then he asked Dmitri to come out on stage. Dmitri was met with a standing ovation, and the program began. After every song, there were screams of "Bravo" along with flowers and gifts. And here, too, Dmitri ended the program with the famous "Notchenka."

All of the towns on this tour were offered the opportunity to televise the performance for a live broadcast in their towns. Ekaterinburg was no exception, and TV was ever-present, with eight cameras focused on us, the audience, and local dignitaries as they came up to the stage to present flowers and gifts to Dmitri and me.

We found that each city has a slightly different reaction to each of the songs. Of course, all of the songs have their universal (for Russia and for Russians) appeal, solemn dignity, and meaning; but each area of Russia also reacts to different things in the songs, because each has its own personal history. Towards the end of the program, we perform the song "The Hills of Manchuria." This particular song is known from the Russo- Japanese War of 1905, and has followed the Russian Soldier ever since:

"Night has approached,
Dusk has settled on the ground,
Deserted hills are drowned in the darkness,
The East is covered by a cloud.
Here in the ground
Our heroes sleep,
A song is sung by the wind above them,
And the stars look down from the sky.
All remains silent in the night
Sleep, warriors, sleep in peace,
May you see in your dreams your native lands,
And your faraway home. …
The people and the fatherland will not forget,
Their sons' courage.
Sleep, heroes, the motherland will always
Cherish your memory."

During "The Hills of Manchuria," we felt that special stillness in the audience much treasured by performers, and that even-more-special silence after we finished the song. It was at least 20 seconds before the audience broke the spell and burst into applause, giving Dmitri a standing ovation.

When we finally returned to the dacha there was a wonderful dinner in store for us. Here was another town where Dmitri had performed only once before, in 1989. A superb soprano, Natalia Datsko, who is Dmitri’s old friend and colleague, had dinner with us. I heard her with Dmitri when they performed for the first time in New York in 1989 at Symphony Space on the upper West side of Manhattan. Natalia is now a soloist of the Ekaterinburg Opera, and performs major roles there and tours around Russia. Another lovely couple was at the dinner too. Margarita Dvorkina is an Italian professor and worked with Dmitri on his first Italian roles, teaching him proper Italian pronunciation and inflection. An avid opera fan, Margarita has been following Dmitri’s career and has tried to meet up with him wherever possible. Her energy is amazing, and her story-telling abilities are a match for anyone’s. From being a translator for Russian groups of artists traveling and performing in Italy, to taking Russian contestants to competitions, to accompanying and translating at business meetings for Russian–Italian entrepreneurs, this lady is dynamite.

We departed our beloved dacha at noon and were met at the airport by the local Sberbank head and our Afghan War Vet friend. Again we were given gifts. Since the rest of the orchestra was flying to Moscow later that afternoon, (they were to have one day off, and then travel to St. Petersburg by train), Dmitri and I boarded a Ural Airlines flight for St. Petersburg ourselves, and off we were to the Venice of the North.