Carmina Slovenica choir wins prestigious award in Russia
Maribor, 16 March - The girl choir Carmina Slovenica has won a Golden Mask national theatre award in Russia. The Maribor-based choir has been selected the winner in the category best foreign production presented in Russia in 2015 for its performance in When the Mountain Changed its Clothing by Heiner Goebbels.
Ljubljana
The girl choir Carmina Slovenica.
Photo: Carmina Slovenica/STA
Goebbels and choir master Karmina Šilec will receive the award at a concluding ceremony of the annual Golden Mask festival, the biggest festival of performing arts in Russia, at Moscow's Stanislavsky theatre on 16 April.
The Golden Mask awards are being conferred in over 30 categories, with the most respected opera, ballet and theatre houses such as the Bolshoi, Mariinski, Maly and Alexandrinsky among the nominees.
The Golden Mask for the best foreign production is outside the competition programme and is conferred based on an opinion of theatre critics and theatre journalists.
Past winners in this category include Pina Bausch, Robert Lepage, Giorgio Strehler, Josef Nadj, Eimuntas Necrosius, Alvis Hermanis, Tamas Ascher, Viktor Bodo, Krzysztof Warlokowski, Katie Mitchell, Luk Parcevall and Michael Thalheimer.
When the Mountain Changed its Clothing is a project by Šilec in conjunction with Goebbels which premiered at the German festival Ruhrtriennale in 2012. The performance was staged at the Golden Mask festival as part of the Context section, which features foreign contemporary performing artists, in March 2015.
It was inspired by a Slovenian folk song about the changing of seasons on Kanin, a mountain in western Slovenia.
Carmina Slovenica, which was established 50 years ago and has been led by Šilec for the past 25 years, is an ensemble of 40 girls aged 12-21 that is one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary acts in Slovenia.
Their performances are typically a mix of singing, theatre and dance.