Foundation Toscanini has issued a touching statement on soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, who passed away at 86 earlier this week. The Parma-based foundation's president Maurizio Roi recalled an evening with Vishnevskaya's husband, the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, and dedicated it to the couple's Moscow-based children, Olga and Elena.
La Fondazione Arturo Toscanini esprime il suo cordoglio per la scomparsa del soprano Galina Veshneskaya, erede e interprete della somma tradizione musicale russa e paladina dei diritti dell’infanzia, cui dedicò un lungo e appassionato impegno. Nell’inviare le condoglianze alle figlie Olga e Elena Rostropovic a Mosca, il presidente Maurizio Roi ha ricordato suo marito Mstislav Rostropovic e il suo ultimo concerto a Parma tenutosi nel gennaio 2006, quando diresse al Teatro Regio la Filarmonica Toscanini nella Sinfonia Leningrado di Šostakovic, nel centenario della sua nascita. “Mi ero da poco insediato alla Toscanini – racconta Roi – e quella fu l’occasione nella quale conobbi personalmente il Maestro Rostropovic. Fu una serata affascinante, che si concluse con una cena indimenticabile trascorsa a parlare di musica. Rostropovic dava del tu alla storia della musica”.
Arturo Toscanini Foundation expresses its condolences for the passing of soprano Galina Veshneskaya, heir and interpreter of the complete sum of Russian musical tradition and an advocate of children's rights, in which she was a long-time and passionate advocate. Sending condonlences to the daughters Olga and Elena Rostropovic in Moscow, president Maurizio Roi remembers her husband Mstislav Rostropovic and his last concert in Parma that took place in Jannuary 2006, when he conducted the Filarmonica Toscanini at the Teatro Regio in Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony on teh centenary of his birth. Recalls Roi: "I had been at Toscanini Foundation for a short while and that's when I personally had the chance to meet Maestro Rostropovich. It was a captivating evening, which ended with an unforgettable dinner spent talking about music. Rostropovich gave to you the history of the music."