Moscow Orchestra!

After our classes today, we had a tour of the Museum of the Moscow Art Theater. (Московский академический художественный театр им.А. П. Чехова.) It was pretty interesting. We were able to see the auditorium with the stage being set up for the evening's production. We saw a gallery of past directors and actors/actresses, the office of the Theater's founder, a typical dressing room, and lots of costumes and props from past performances. There was a young woman on the tour with us who turned out to be a theater critic and the sister of the husband of our Wellesley classmate and "sister". :) Katya is incredibly knowledgeable about Chekov and Shakespeare productions both in New York and in Moscow/St. Petersburg. I hope I am not spoiling any surprises when I say that she might be visiting Wellesley as a guest lecturer this spring ! :D

After a wonderful dinner, we went to the Bolshoi Zal or the Big Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. (Большой Зал). We had the great privilege to hear the academic symphony orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic. (Академический симфонический оркестр Московской филармонии ). Our Wellesley sister's husband had a cello solo in the first part of the program. He did an astounding, beautiful solo for "enigma variations" (Энигма-вариации) by the British composer Sir Edward William Elgar. (Элгар) It was incredibly moving and very well done. We even had the honor to meet this incredibly talented musician Sergey Antonov (Сергей Антонов)

We ended the day at an Italian cafe :)