One of the many halls in The State Hermitage Museum
The collection contains around 3 million exhibit items, including:
* 16,783 paintings
* 621,274 works of graphic art
* 12,556 sculptures
* 298,775 works of applied arts
* 734,400 archaeological monuments
* 1,125,323 numismatics
* 144,185 other exhibit items
The museum was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great purchased a collection of Flemish and Dutch paintings (225) from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernest Gotzkowski. If you were to spend one minute looking at every item it would take many years to complete. I wish I had a week here!
The Mariinsky Concert Hall
After the Museum, I attended a performance of the Barber of Seville at the Mariinsky Concert Hall. It was performed in Russian.
This is something relatively new that they are trying to increase the audience. However there were only a few hundred at this performance. The opera was updated to modern times and included scantily clad women and Russian soldiers.
I must say the adaption was not for me. The music was fine although most of the time the singers and orchestra were not on the same page. It sure was an experience to hear this sung in Russian. I didn’t understand what they were saying but I know the opera well enough to understand the point. One strange thing: Rosina’s aria Una voce poco fa was sung in Italian. I wonder if she refused to sing in it Russian?
~ Tom Wright, Director of Artistic Planning
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