Shchedrin’s opera is itself, charmingly, a present: the score is dedicated to Valery Gergiev for his 60th birthday, and Shchedrin has filled it with musical references to favourite composers, making a treasure-hunt for his friend. In Gergiev’s turn, he commissioned this work from Shchedrin to celebrate the Mariinsky’s splendid new theatre (where it premiered in June last year). There could, therefore, be no better way to hear this than with Gergiev himself at the helm, conducting the Mariinsky Opera Orchestra, for the UK première at the Barbican, and the sound Gergiev created was suitably fabulous, despite his severe back problems (which delayed the start by an hour).

Click here to read my full review on Bachtrack.

Hooke’s drawing of a flea in Micrographia