[. . .]
Lionized in Russia as a successor to Shostakovich, Mr. Shchedrin is
less known in Europe and the United States, although Leonard Bernstein,
after a great success with Shchedrin’s First Concerto for Orchestra,
commissioned his Second Concerto to celebrate the New York
Philharmonic’s 125th anniversary in 1967. A change of publishers 20
years ago may be partially to blame. But Europe is awakening to a
Shchedrin renaissance, championed by the conductor Valery Gergiev,
among others, who in March will lead the Maryinsky Opera in a new
production of Shchedrin’s “Dead Souls,” based on the Gogol novel. The
following month, his opera based on Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” will be staged
in Wiesbaden, Germany.
[....]