The programme comprises Tchaikovsky's chamber vocal compositions: romances to Alexay Tolstoy's poems, 6 French songs (Op. 65), 6 romances to Daniil Ratgauz's poems.

Igor Golovatenko:

“The idea of the coming concert at the Novaya Opera was conceived by Dmitry Sibirtsev and me, and it did not come out of the blue, for there had been such concerts in the theatre’s Mirror Foyer. This time Dmitry suggested giving a concert of chamber music on the main stage. It will be my first recital at the theatre with which I have maintained very friendly relations for many years. We have planned a monographic evening dedicated to Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s romances. It is the first time that I’m going to perform so many of Tchaikovsky’s chamber vocal pieces.

I try to sing chamber music at least once a year, little by little enriching my repertoire. To keep my voice flexible and let it go beyond the range of specific operatic singing, which at times requires large sonance and monotonous dynamics, I perform chamber music whenever possible. Moreover, chamber pieces are very beautiful. I have performed a lot of Russian, French and Italian chamber music. Dmitry Sibirtsev and I also had a wonderful programme of Modest Mussorgsky’s cycle Songs and Dances of Death.

A few words about the programme. The first part of the concert is comprised of almost all of Tchaikovsky’s romances to Alexey Tolstoy’s poems. The second part includes the French cycle (Op. 65), which I have performed in Moscow many times both with piano andan orchestra. I like this cycle very much and consider it to be very interesting from the musical point of view, but unfortunately it is underestimated by musicians. It may be so because it is written in French, but most probably it is simply less popular thanthe other romances by the composer. Nevertheless I promote it insistently. The concert will also include Tchaikovsky’s last chamber vocal opus 73 dedicated to the Russian tenor Nikolai Figner. Altogether it should be an interesting programme both thematically (selection of romances) and poetically and in the sense of reflecting different stages in Tchaikovsky’s work”.