However, the audience was still quite empty. “We would be happy to have a full hall, but compared to the Latvian average, we have a wonderful visit,” concluded Uldis Lipskis, the conductor of the Liepaja Symphony Orchestra (LSO).
Due to the pandemic, the time and program of the festival have been changed several times. In the evening of Latvian vocal chamber music, pianist Agnese Egliņa and singers Ilze Grēvele-Skaraine and Rinalds Kandalincevs met with the audience. The narrator Orest Silabriedis remembered how he and A. Egliņš had been on this stage in the last concert with the audience. It was the five-year anniversary of the “Big Amber” on October 31 last year.
Pianist Georgy Osokin gave his solo concert. On Saturday, LSO finally met with its listeners in person, this time under the direction of conductor Atvars Lakstīgala. Pianist Reinis Zariņš’s interpretation featured Johannes Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, while the brilliant Lithuanian soprano Vida Miknevičute sang the world-famous opera arias of Verdi, Puccini and Wagner.
Anita and Modris Rektiņi had come from Laidu parish. “Fantastic and incredible feelings! All people without masks can sit and listen to live music, ”said Anita. Her husband added that it is even hard to believe that this is finally happening. “Liepāja Symphony Orchestra likes the best of our symphony orchestras, also the wonderful conductor Mr. Lakstīgala. When musicians play, they have emotions in their faces, not positions, and formally tingle or play, ”said A. Rektiņa.
“To put together some cameras, you can’t compare playing in an empty hall with the fact that you, the people, are with us and we can create music together, because only then does it make sense,” R. Zariņš emphasized.
“You can already see how it’s going without the audience – we’re muttering something on stage.”
U. Lipskis has great feelings of gratitude to his colleagues, especially in the management of the orchestra, who have carried all the weight. “In the months that are dragging in a strange mode, we think – either the locks will open, there will be floods and the ceiling will be full. However, news also began to come from colleagues from Riga that the flywheel had stopped. We have to start accustoming the audience again, as twenty years ago – how colossal it is to be in a concert. Rezekne’s “Gora” is similar to a visit, and the manager of the concert hall Diāna Zirniņa says that their visitors, very educated people, do not understand anything, what can and cannot be, what is it about the certificate, where to get it. The amount of spam from the government and the media and the density of change has been such that everyone is tired. The society is not ready and waits for the foam to come to a standstill, ”said the orchestra leader.
There have been misunderstandings in ticket control regarding the validity of certificates. “A person calculates the days after the second vaccine, buys a ticket on the 14th day, but the certificate takes effect on the 15th day. There was a situation when there were four hours left until a valid certificate, ”revealed U. Lipskis.
The festival will continue at the end of August with music by Gija Kančeli, “Xylem Trio” and rising Georgian jazz star Lisa Kereselidze. The world-demanded tenor Alexander Antonenko will sing together with LSO and maestro Gintars Rinkevics. First of all, people should be told that “you are carrying your head here”, U. Lipskis said about the intentions to popularize attending concerts more.
“We are more looking forward to when the mixed regime will be officially allowed, say, those vaccinated on the ground floor and those not vaccinated on the balcony, or vice versa. And so that vaccinees do not have to sit in masks in the summer, so they can go to the cafe to buy wine or water.
Children, too – why can’t a fifteen-year-old listen to such good music? ” said the orchestra leader.
The audience still hopes to hear Maija Kovalevska and Armands Ābols, whose concerts had to be canceled, once in Liepāja. “We will definitely not give up, but the festival in March next year has already been planned differently, it has an emphasis on Latvian music and the vocals do not have such a role. We will most likely invite musicians separately, because bringing each one from their country is a great luxury that can only be afforded at the Star Festival, ”U. Lipskis pointed out.
