HÀ NỘI Russia's oldest philharmonic orchestra from St Petersburg, the D.D. Shostakovitch National Academic Philhamonia, named after the famous composer, performed two spectacular nights in Hồ Gươm Opera.

The show finished with a standing ovation that had spectators sing along to Moscow Nights, a familiar song to many Vietnamese who may have spent time in Russia or learned the song by heart.

Under the baton of conductor Nikolay Alexeev, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, the orchestra jointly performed some of Russia's best musical classics with soprano Yekaterina Sergeyeva and bassist Alexey Tikhomirov.

White Night brought together some of the best of Russia's music world: Soprano Yekaterina Sergeeva of Mariinsky in St Petersburg and bassist Alexey Tikhomirov of the Bolshoi and New Opera.

Accompanied by nearly 100 musicians of the St Petersburg Philhamonia, they sang Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky to move Hanoian music lovers to the core.

Mezzo-soprano Yekatrina Sergeeva sang the aria All Men Surrender to Love's Power opera Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky.

Based on a verse novel by Alexander Pushkin, dubbed the "Sun of Russian poetry", Tchaikovsky wrote music of dramatic nature to make the poetic plot twisted and more dramatically appealing.

Next, she sang Marfa's Divination from Khovanshchina, with her voice reaching the farthest corners of the hall, resonating with the entire audience.

Alexey Tikhomirov sang Boris's monologue from the opera Boris Godunov with the depth of his voice leaving the audience in awe, as such low notes are not regularly heard.

He then sang Songs and Dances of Death by Mussorgsky, a voice cycle for bass that the writer wrote in mid-1870 to poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov. Each song in the cycle poetically dealt with death, including the death of a child, a young person, death during a drunken misadventure and death caused by war.

Bassist Tikhomirov has frequented international music festivals and has sung under the baton of the world's top conductors, including Ricarrdo Muti, Zubin Mehta, and Kent Nagano.

In the second half of the concert, the Philhamonia played Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, which was written in in 1888 and premiered in St Petersburg the same year.

It's four movements started with an overall trajectory from E minor to E major, depicting the main theme, dubbed the "fate theme", which started out with a funeral, but later turned into a triumphant march.

Conductor Nikolay Alexeev, People's artist of the Russian Federation and Chief Conductor of the Philhamonia, is a previous winner of the International Herbert von Karajan Foundation competition in 1982, the V. Talich Competition in Prague in 1985, and Min-On in Tokyo in 1985.

To respond to the enthusiasm of the Hanoian audience, conductor Alexeev led the duo in singing the Moscow Nights and invited the thrilled audience to join in.

But the real encore was the Masquerade by Khachaturian, the waltz suite known the world over for being danced to in the epic film War and Peace between Natacha Rostova and André Bolkonsky.

He had conducted Russia's leading orchestras as well as others, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam, Dresden, Stutgart, and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestras, the Berlin and Baltimore orchestras, the BBC Scottish Orchestra, among others.

Last season he led the orchestra on to tour in Sochi, Nalchik, Yerevan, Moscow, Yaroslavl, and China. This season they toured Sochi and Nalchik in August, Yekaterinburg in October, Moscow, and Hà Nội in November, and will be back in Moscow in January 2026. VNS