Yekaterina Gubanova belongs to a new generation of Russian opera singers better known abroad than in their native country. Though she has yet to turn 30, she has already sung at such top venues as Covent Garden and the Paris National Opera. Until this week, however, she has never performed on a major stage in her native Moscow.
On Wednesday, the singer will make her Moscow debut with a performance of Gustav Mahler's song-symphony "Das Lied von der Erde" – one of the composer's latest and most personal works – at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. The concert is likely to be the musical highlight of the new Territoriya festival, and acclaimed Greek-born maestro Teodor Currentzis will conduct.
In the closing days of this summer's Salzburg Festival in Austria, where she sang in Mozart's "Magic Flute", Gubanova said she was looking forward to her Moscow debut.
"I simply love Mahler's 'Das Lied von der Erde', and I'm very happy to be making my Moscow debut with precisely this composition," she said. "After all, if I was singing something from the Russian repertoire, the critics would tear me to pieces".
Gubanova admitted she had mixed feelings about the Russian musical scene, which she saw as inward-looking and isolated from the European musical context. In fact, such feelings played a role in her decision to drop out of the Moscow Conservatory and continue her musical studies in Finland.
"It's hard to get an education at the Moscow Conservatory, even if you want to", she said. "For example, it's almost impossible to take home a score from the library. Besides, they were orienting us toward the domestic vocal school, toward the old traditions of Italian opera. And I didn't want to stay a Russian singer forever".
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