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Nobel Laureates Love Opera

On 21 September, the opening day of the opera season, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s production of La bohème was attended by five Nobel laureates.


Perhaps they chose this particular production because the love affairs and pranks of the young inhabitants of the Latin Quarter reminded the scientists of the time when they were students themselves... but most likely it is simply that they love opera. During the intermission, the distinguished guests met Peter Feranec, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s Musical Director and Chief Conductor, and the scientists thanked him for his stirring interpretation of Puccini’s score and discussed the merits of the vocalists, showing a keen interest in the theatre’s repertoire and its plans for the forthcoming season.

The guests of the Mikhailovsky Theatre included Zhores Alferov (Russia), winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2000, academician and Member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Roger Kornberg (USA), winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2006, and Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford University; biochemist Richard Roberts (UK), winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1993; and biochemists Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko (both from Israel), winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2004. They were joined by Professor Detlev Ganten (Germany). The scientists were accompanied by their spouses.

The visit of the Nobel laureates to the theatre also allowed them to continue their professional dialogue from their attendance at the St. Petersburg Scientific Forum, ‘Science and Society. Physiology and Medicine of the 21st Century’.