Producer Svetlana Dvoretskaia sails into Marc Laurent in Hazelton Lanes with a coffee and an apology for being a hair late. She is just back from New York where she was taking a meeting with Placido Domingo.

Dvoretskaia is president of Show One Productions, responsible for bringing such productions as AGA-BOOM! and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo to Toronto.

She is presenting Grammy-winning conductor and solo violist Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists. Chamber Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall on Feb. 17 and she is auditioning an outfit from regular haunt Marc Laurent for the occasion.

She prefers a tailored, classic look, accessorized by her take-no-prisoners Alberta Ferretti sling backs studded with Swarovski crystals or the pair of black patent Marc Jacob boots she is wearing, the ones with rocker-chick zippers up the back.

"Right before a concert in Montreal, I broke the heel of my shoe and I ran into Brown's and bought the boots."

She tries on two suits, one from Alberta Ferretti and another from Narciso Rodriguez, both in the $2,500 neighbourhood – a pricey 'hood but this is Hazelton Lanes. However, the store's winter march is on sale up to 80 per cent off. She scored a $1,700 YSL dress there for $300.

As befitting a producer, Dvoretskaia likes to bargain shop. Her pale blue cashmere scarf is from Century 21 discount designer store in New York. Her fabulous glasses are Roberto Cavalli's that she also bought at Century 21 for something like $30 three years ago and she is still getting compliments on them.

In Toronto, she also shops at Holts and at Speccio for shoes.

"Whenever I need something, I know exactly where to go to find what I'm looking for. I won't look for dressy merchandise at Banana Republic.

"I have two concerts at Roy Thomson Hall and I can get stuff I need here. I'm young (early thirties) so I want something classic without being frumpy and it needs to be comfortable because I am running around all day. It's usually a suit or a dress I can wear with a jacket. I can't go all décolletage."

Manager Greg Madesker is her Marc Laurent stylist. He recently facilitated 30 wardrobe changes for Usher and is doing the series Lion's Den.

Dvoretskaia was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, daughter of Michael Dvoretsky, a doctor, and pianist Annetta Maizel. She is a music school graduate and has a master's degree in business and theatre management from the Academy of Culture in St. Petersburg.

She played piano but her mother didn't want her to be a performer because it was too hard a life.

"I grew up backstage, surrounded by musicians and artists," she recalls. "I wanted to be somewhat involved. It would have been easier to have stayed in Russia because of the connections."

However, she relocated to Toronto 11 years ago by herself.

"After perestroika, the country was falling apart. There was no communism; capitalism came in and people started to make money, but there was a lot of crime, so you lived in a cage. It was dangerous. You were becoming a target for every person who couldn't make it and was living on the street."

For her first five years in Toronto, she worked as a salesperson in a succession of boutiques. Her style evolved from quaintly Eastern European, with scarves tied at the side, little hats and precious little handbags, to chic and sophisticated.

"Back then in Russia, fashion was rigid; now it is gorgeous. Back then, it was difficult to buy anything high end because there was nothing. Once things became available, they would spend a month's salary to buy a bag – we all know what a Chanel bag costs – or they would borrow the money. I can still hear them saying, `I have until May to repay the money I borrowed from a friend.'"

Dvoretskaia moved from retail to the corporate world, doing business development for a human resources company when all she wanted to do was to get a job in the arts.

"People would laugh in my face," she recalls. "I worked for an event management company, standing at the door greeting guests. I realized I had to find myself; I'd been here for five years and I had to create a job for myself because no one was giving me one."

So she went to New York where friends from St. Petersburg were touring.

"I brought them here and it was a humongous success," she says. "It was all adrenalin and a huge desire to change everything in my life. I sold 1,300 seats in two weeks. I sold them and delivered them to houses overnight."

Her headliners were conductor/violinist Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi Orchestra. She will bring the National Philharmonic of Russia with Spivakov to Roy Thomson Hall on April 28.

Dvoretskaia's roster also includes internationally acclaimed baritone Dimitri Hvorostovsky.

"My roster is like the top, top, top," she says.

And it is a diva-free zone.

"I deal with the classical world," she contends. "They say opera is the worst because they are the most capricious and demanding."

That said, she admits to having trepidations about the Trocks.

"I thought they would all be divas but they were the least problematic. A producer deals with things like lost luggage, hotel rooms not being ready and they said, `Svetlana, you do your thing. You have a million things to do.' They told me to go back to the hotel and they would deal with it. I was shocked."

What is she doing with Domingo?

"It's not just a concert production, it is involved with reality TV. I do music; that is my involvement in the project."

Sounds like an occasion for another new outfit.

The Russians Are Coming is film director Norman Jewison’s silly 1966 comedy about a Soviet-era submarine that runs aground off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, sending the local citizenry into unfounded Cold-War hysterics. In the last two decades, there’s been another kind of Russian invasion: a flood of musicians, dancers and theatrical artists. This artistic outpouring was largely caused by the collapse of the USSR in 1991. On one hand, this triggered a financial meltdown for many Russian musicians, due to deep funding cuts for cultural institutions and activities. On the other hand, it allowed Russian musicians to travel much more freely.

Even Russia’s most esteemed musicians found that in order to succeed in the new environment, they needed new skills: entrepreneurial savvy, a competitive spirit, and sheer determination. “In Russia in the 1990s,” the famous Russian conductor Valery Gergiev told me in an interview a few years ago, “you couldn’t possibly plan by thinking first about money. You must have your plans – and if you have artistic force, the money will find you.”

Like many Western cities, Toronto has benefited from the political and economic upheavals half a world away. Since the 1990s, Toronto has played host to such Russian pianists as Evgeny Kissin, Boris Berman, Michael Berkovsky, Olga Kern and Alexander Toradze (he’s Georgian, strictly speaking). Concert-pianist Alexander Tselyakov lives here. So do Inna Perkis and Boris Zarankin, who run Toronto’s Off Centre Music Salon .

And that’s just the pianists: we also get a parade of Russian conductors, singers, instrumental soloists, chamber musicians, even the occasional opera director. We also get large ensembles – most notably, Gergiev’s Kirov Orchestra of St. Petersburg, which has visited Toronto three times. The next big Russian ensemble to visit will be the National Philharmonic Orchestra, with pianist Denis Matsuev, which makes its Toronto debut at Roy Thomson Hall on April 28.

In March, violist/conductor Yuri Bashmet brought his Moscow Soloists to Roy Thomson Hall. Following a masterclass that he gave at the Remenyi House of Music the day before the concert, I had a chance to interview him. I soon learned that when speaking about his chamber orchestra, he’s anything but modest.

“It’s the best orchestra,” Bashmet stated with matter-of-fact directness. “I’ve heard many orchestras, and this is the truth – it’s not just publicity. It’s because they are musicians from the best schools, and we began the orchestra together. The chamber orchestra is 16 years old, and only two musicians have changed.”

However, back in 1991, everything had changed. Bashmet’s first chamber orchestra – also called the Moscow Soloists – suddenly disbanded in 1991 when all the players decided to relocate to Western Europe. Undaunted, by this “divorce,” he rebuilt his chamber orchestra in Russia with the players he leads today.

Bashmet’s astonishing concert at Roy Thomson Hall the next evening underscored his grand claim about “the best orchestra”. But the collapse of the Moscow Soloists in 1991 had underscored something else. Russia had officially joined the capitalist world. But Russia’s musical culture hadn’t quite adjusted to the new way of doing things. Things happen there that probably couldn’t happen elsewhere.

“I cannot say that a new system is well established,” says Vladimir Spivakov, conductor of the National Philharmonic Orchestra, by phone from Moscow. “But even in this current ‘un-system,’ when the government doesn’t want someone to go away, they organize an orchestra.”

Spivakov speaks from experience. Six years ago, he abruptly resigned from the National Orchestra of Russia, over a dispute with the ensemble’s chief administrator (a former KGB officer). “I broke the contract, because I could not accept how he behaved with the musicians,” Spivakov explains. “Musicians are not soldiers, or slaves.”

“Mr. Putin called me, when he heard this news, and said that he didn’t want me to leave Russia – and had I thought about a new national orchestra? I said no, and he said I should start to think about it.” The result was the creation of the National Philharmonic. “I listened to 400 musicians,” Spivakov recalls, “and I chose the best 100.”

Putin’s name often arises in conversations about music in Russia – and prominent Russian musicians are careful to pay their respects. Indeed, the level of political involvement in culture in Russia would horrify Canadians who are more comfortable with government at “arm’s length”. On the other hand, Putin’s interest shows just how important classical music is in Russia. (Which of Canada’s political leaders could name the conductor of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra?)

Spivakov is clearly grateful to Putin for his support. And Bashmet offers unalloyed praise for the Russian leader. “If he says yes to something, then it will be done. And he doesn’t say yes if he can’t do it. That’s why I like him.”

What does all this mean to concert-goers in Toronto? It means that those musicians who are resourceful enough to navigate the difficult economic and political waters of today’s Russia – such as Gergiev, Spivakov and Bashmet – will continue to grace our concert halls. And with the current downturn in the world’s economy, we may well hear more of them.

“They all want to come here,” says Svetlana Dvoretskaia of Show One Productions, who points out that international touring brings Russian musicians both money and prestige. “But they can’t just come to Canada. To work, it has to be a tour of North America – especially with the big groups.”

Born into a musical family in St. Petersburg, Dvoretskaia is well connected in artistic circles in Russia. She moved to Canada in 1998 and since 2004 she’s brought many Russian musicians to Toronto – including the Moscow Soloists last month, and the National Philharmonic of Russia this month. Much of her audience is drawn from the 250,000 people in the GTA who are of Russian descent (or belong to some other former Soviet nationality). But she also attracts a “mainstream” audience – and in the last five years she’s learned a thing or two about promoting classical music in Canada.

“Toronto audiences are very conservative,” she says. “They will go and see the same orchestra every year, but it’s hard to get them to hear an artist whom they may not know so well. That’s a serious challenge. I’ve presented Gidon Kremer, and the Borodin Quartet – and it was a huge challenge to get the mainstream audience out.”

During the Cold War, political tensions made appearances by Russian artists rare and fascinating events. Today the appearances are no longer rare, but the fascination remains. The current “un-system” (as Spivakov puts it) seems to be working in our favour, creating a survival-of-the-fittest musical culture that produces remarkable results.

To be sure, there have been some problems. In 2002, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic was ordered off a plane in Washington DC, en route from Amsterdam to Los Angeles, because of drunk and disorderly conduct. Two years earlier, the entire Moscow Philharmonic was impersonated in Hong Kong. A concert-manager there had engaged (what he thought was) the renowned orchestra; a plane-load of (presumably) Russian musicians claiming to be the Moscow Phiharmonic landed, played several concerts to critical acclaim, picked up their paycheques, reboarded their plane and left. It was not until several weeks later that the real Moscow Philharmonic (which was on tour in Europe through all this) learned of the hoax.

Such shenanigans aside, we should be glad both for the Russians who arrive, and those who are here to stay.

A box of fine chocolate truffles is the best metaphor for last night's premiere visit of the 6-year-old Russian Philharmonic Orchestra to Roy Thomson Hall.

Under founding music director Vladimir Spivakov (who has conducted in Toronto before), the visitors served up some Greatest Hits of Russian Music in a way that honoured a rich tradition while making the pieces sound as fresh as wet ink on a sheet of paper.

To extend the truffle metaphor, each work was shaped by the same elegantly wielded baton, but given its own subtle flavour.

This wasn't music to knock your socks off. Rather, it was a show of fine craft meant to be savoured.

The showpiece was Sergei Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 1, played with a mixture of quiet intimacy and boisterous panache by Russian piano star Denis Matsuev. He and the orchestra allowed the composer's lyrical side to speak, while also satisfying thrill-seekers with bursts of pyrotechnics.

In a mid-program encore, Matsuev threw aside the velvet gloves to all but demolish the piano in a blazing transcription of Edvard Grieg's In The Hall Of The Mountain King.

The program opened amidst the diaphanous, late-19th-century glow of Anatol Liadov's The Enchanted Lake. Spivakov carried this lyrical spirit through the Rachmaninov to Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky and Sergei Prokofiev concert reworkings of their Romeo and Juliet ballet scores. The overall effect was sweet, but never saccharine.

The concert closed with the Prokofiev, interpreted with a crisp clarity that highlighted every colourful orchestral move in the cleverly written score. Although the music ended with Tybalt's death, the concert was full of life itself.

The National Philharmonic of Russia was founded in 2003 at the instigation of Vladimir Putin no less, to be the cultural ambassador of the New Russia. The players are the cream of the crop, and gifted principal conductor Vladimir Spivakov is their fearless leader. Their generous Toronto concert included four encores and demonstrated that these players are one of the world’s top orchestras.

Spivakov and company are Russian to their souls. Their glorious sound is big but not vulgar. In the quiet moments, the music shimmers, then rises again like a volcanic rush of excitement, sweeping every listener with it. The maestro builds climaxes around tension, lengthening pauses just long enough so that the audience is panting for the next note.

Pianist Denis Matsuev, who performed Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 1, is a big, strapping fellow whose imposing presence belies his sensitivity. His physical strength allows him to assault the keys in breath-taking fashion, yet his reflective moments are achingly beautiful.

Tuesday, April 29, 2009, Roy Thompson Hall, Toronto

Maestro Spivakov’s style of conducting is elegant and flowing as he demonstrates from the podium a full range of emotions. The orchestra follows like a ship before the wind. The string sound has a lustrous beauty; interjections of the winds and horns are perfectly clear; the low-register basses and brass add rich photographic blacks to the musical picture. The program of overly familiar compositions turns out to be full of springlike excitement and fresh insights.

The first of four pieces from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite, “Montagues and Capulets,” is a space in which power circulates like the strutting Boyars entering the feast in Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible. Taking the same theme, the woodwinds manipulate it to introduce the youthful lovers as gentler reflections of their hostile clans. Their playing of the “Death of Tybalt” echoes forward and westward 25 years and predicts the amazing textures, harmonies, and moves of Bernstein’s West Side Story.

Under Spivakov’s baton, this orchestra shows a mastery of transitions, swift yet finely graded, that bring out new understandings of musical dramas. In the last third of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, as the final statement of the lover’s theme dissolves into the pounding music of clan violence that destroys them, you can hear how the power a family accumulates mutates into pride and how that pride darkens into a walking sense of doom out which, strangely, pours a melting stream of love that gleams for a short time and is overcome.

Denis Matsuev refired the concerto “that was heard ‘round the world”– Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto, Op. 1 (Van Cliburn ‘fired’ it first in Moscow during the height of Cold War and won the International Tchaikovsky Competition). Matsuev took charge of the work with sparkling finger work in the rolling introduction, then got deeply involved with the moody cadenza that soon followed. His Steinway, selected and borrowed for the occasion from Remenyi’s, rang like a bell. The orchestra worked with him bringing spring colours, fresh and vibrant, to Rachmaninoff’s earliest work. Between them, they developed a dramatic interpretation of the rhapsodic themes that was delicate, with a youthful fleetness.

The short slow movement, Chopinesque and Disneyesque, moved without rest into the ‘Allegro scherzando/vivace’. Matsuev, ever the showman, came out of the gate like a rabbit, melted down a bit during the following romantic section (redolent of Grieg), and rebuilt a dazzling pace towards a coherent and satisfying climax. His encore, a kind of black and white Sumi-e heavy ink-brush variation of a theme from Peer Gynt stunned the audience deeper into ecstasy. Spivakov offered three encores of music that danced and made us feel we were at a party and having a really good time.

MIAMI Toronto will be visited by just one international symphony orchestra this season, an ensemble that owes its very existence to the most powerful man in Russia, Vladimir Putin.

The year was 2003 and the celebrated Russian violinist-conductor Vladimir Spivakov had just announced on television that he would be leaving his prestigious post as conductor of the Russian National Orchestra.

"Twenty minutes later my telephone rang at home," Spivakov recalled over a pre-concert dinner in Miami Beach, Fla., last week, "and it was Vladimir Putin.

"He said, `I have just listened to the news and I am not happy. Why do you want to go?'

"I explained to the president that I could not work in an atmosphere where the administration takes control from the artists. He said, `I don't want you to go abroad. All Russia loves you. Think about a new orchestra.'

"Fifteen minutes later the Minister of Culture called me and said, `I'll be in Moscow in three days. We have to talk about founding a National Philharmonic Orchestra.'"

Even Spivakov looked amazed, gazing across his lobster, while recounting the breathtaking speed of the decision that now brings Russia's newest orchestra to Roy Thomson Hall for its Canadian debut on April 28, under the auspices of Show One.

When Putin speaks, things obviously happen.

So, over the next four months Spivakov personally auditioned about 400 players drawn from his country's leading orchestras, before choosing 100.

"At our first rehearsal, I said, `I know I have chosen very good professional people, but it is not enough. I would like to invite you to love each other, to love the public and to love the music.' I didn't say anything more and we started the rehearsal."

Less than six years later, the National Philharmonic of Russia is widely regarded as one of the finest ensembles of its kind. As the pre-eminent Polish composer-conductor Krzysztof Penderecki observed, "Vladimir Spivakov has gathered the best musicians. It is a fantastic orchestra."

Observing the orchestra in rehearsal and in performance in Miami's superb Knight Concert Hall, a visiting Torontonian couldn't help noticing its high morale.

"Orchestras such as ours exist due to the energy of the conductor," explained principal cellist Yuri Loevsky, one of Russia's most honoured orchestral musicians and a former principal player with the Bolshoi Theatre. "I came back to Russia after working in Germany because of Vladimir Spivakov. Conductors in Russia used to be complete dictators, owning the lives of their players. He doesn't work that way. He even bought the cello I am playing."

"Last year he gave me my instrument, the instrument of my dreams," echoed principal trumpeter Kirill Soldatov, a prodigiously gifted brass player who joined the orchestra while still in his teens and was heard last season in Toronto accompanying Olga Kern in Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Spivakov's other orchestra, the Moscow Virtuosi.

Smiling, the trumpeter announced, "He has been like a father to me."

Like the National Philharmonic of Russia, the Moscow Virtuosi owes its founding 30 years ago to the man who won the Montreal International Violin Competition in 1969.

"It was after I won the Montreal Competition that I thought seriously about becoming a conductor," Spivakov recalled. "In the next four years I was not allowed to play outside the USSR. I still don't know why. I had many invitations, from Herbert von Karajan, even from Glenn Gould, who heard my Beethoven sonata performance from the competition over the radio and wanted me to come to Toronto to play with him. When I listen to his playing I still cry. It is like praying.

"So in those years in the Soviet Union I studied conducting and formed the Moscow Virtuosi. The Moscow Virtuosi played the first three years underground – the Borodin String Quartet were my first desk players – until the Moscow Olympiad, when Lord Killanin came and wanted to hear some music.

"I had a telephone call from the Olympic Committee to come with my group the next night to the Pushkin Museum. Lord Killanin was the first to stand and applaud and the next day Pravda (the leading official Soviet newspaper) declared the existence of the Moscow Virtuosi."

People have been standing and applauding Spivakov's orchestras ever since. The evening after dining with him, I watched as a wildly enthusiastic Florida audience demanded and received four encores after a full performance at the Knight Concert Hall.

Then as now, Vladimir Putin obviously knew what he was doing.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

The National Philharmonic of Russia does its artistic heritage proud, making its music, familiar or not, exciting to hear. Heeding the clear vision of Spivakov, its members play with a cohesiveness and insight that belies their short history, as if they have been doing this forever. And, in a way, they have. While the nuances of their personality remain to develop, they already possess the eternal soul of Russia.

Margaret Shakespeare, Orlando Sentinel, Marc 30, 2007

Spivakov and company had an abandon that made the music’s drama hit home. The sheer rage of the orchestra’s sounds, from murmurs to flashes, played up the phantasmagorical streak that runs through the whole piece.

Steven Brown, The Charlotte Observer, March 28, 2007

Sandwiched between the two superb sets of symphonic fireworks, complete with both nuanced restraint and the sort of full-throttle eloquence possible only with such a large and markably accomplished orchestra.

Laura Stewart, Daytona Beach News Journal, April 7, 2007

In the four yeas since it was founded in 2003, the National Philharmonic of Russia has grown into an ensemble whose sonority rivals that of the great orchestras of Europe.

Paul Horsley, The Kansas City Star, March 2007

Founded just four years ago, the National Philharmonic of Russia already is a virtuoso orchestra. Its performance Sunday at Davies Symphony Hall under the baton of Vladimir Spivakov was exceptional and often brilliant, with moments so vivid that the music felt almost wet, like fresh paint on a canvas. How an orchestra, especially a large one like this, can come so far so fast is a matter of mystery and speculation.

Richard Scheinin, Mercury News, February 27, 2007

The concert opened with Tchaikovsky’s fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet. The interpretation was ultra-dramatic, especially the way that dynamics were used to prepare the second appearance of the love theme. The iteration of the Friar Lawrence theme by the solo trumpet was brilliant and precise. The National Philharmonic of Russia brought the season to a rousing close. We should definitely keep the Russians coming.

Joseph Youngblood, Cox News Service, April 7, 2007

In the beginning of the season… Vladimir Spivakov invited the top-ranking musical forces of most important Moscow orchestras to the National Philharmonic of Russia… In December 2003 the NPR manifested noticeable progress, while at present the Orchestra is turning slowly but surely  into the best orchestra of the Russian capital, and the performance of Brahms’s “Ein deutsches Requiem” under Thomas Sanderling proved it.

Ilya Ovchinnikov, Gazeta, February 10, 2004

Vladimir Spivakov’s new orchestra is gradually gaining momentum; with the increasing number of performances the quality of team-playing is rising proportionally, the timbre richness and precision are improving, and the overall artistic insight is getting more and more convincing. The Orchestra made a significant breakthrough, well seen even with the naked eye, with its performance of “Ein deutsches Requiem” by Brahms under the German Maestro Thomas Sanderling.

Andrey Khripin, Nezavisimaya gazeta, February 11, 2004

“Remembering Kolobov…” was the name of the evening organized by the National Philharmonic of Russia with which the late unlamented Maestro Kolobov had not had the opportunity to work… The National Philharmonic of Russia sounded in the concert as a nearly perfect instrument…

Dmitriy Morozov, Kultura, March 11, 2004

The “Remembering Kolobov…” concert was a success… and the celebration did have a festive flavour. Among the main heroes of the night one should name the National Philharmonic of Russia that is growing up from concert to concert, as well as the Conductor Theodore Currentzis who had prepared a very complicated program of over 15 operatic  scenes… The night ended up in a prolonged ovation.”

Ilya Ovchinnikov, Gazeta, March 11, 2004

…The National Philharmonic of Russia founded by Vladimir Spivakov has all capacities necessary to become the best orchestra in Russia. It is young in age and in spirit, it shows no routine, it displays not solely the top-class professional skills, but also the rare ability, almost vanished now, to enjoy the music, to plunge into it, to create it in front of the audience. Although Domingo still need not prove that he is the only one, the most brilliant number of the concert was the orchestral Intermezzo from “La boda de Luis Alonso” by Jimenez, in which each orchestra member was virtuosic, inspired and unforgettable…”

Valery Kichin, Rossiyskaia gazeta, March 12, 2004

“It was with genuine frankness and joy that Domingo thanked the musicians of the National Philharmonic of Russia after the concert. “

Ilya Ovchinnikov, Gazeta, March 12, 2004

“Our visit was unforgettable and working with your orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, was a unique experience. The orchestra represents an exceptionally high level. This will probably become one of the best orchestras in the world. I think the unique atmosphere during the rehearsals and the 7 Gates of Jerusalem concert left the audience with many great memories and I will recall it as one of the best performances of this piece ever. I wish that your cooperation with this orchestra is one great success.” Krzysztof Penderecki, December 6, 2003

 “To the National Philharmonic of Russia. I love every single one of you.”

Jessye Norman, July 8, 2003

“To all the musicians of the National Philharmonic of Russia and to Vladimir Spivakov, my friend and colleague, with deepest regards for this wonderful concert in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.” James Conlon, July 10, 2003

To the National Philharmonic of Russia with my admiration and many thanks for the wonderful help and playing during my concert. Looking forward  for the next time (maybe conducting you?). With much love.”  Placido Domingo, March 10, 2004

“Dear Maestro Spivakov! Compliments for the great work you have done with your Orchestra. Looking forward for the next time. With my friendship and admiration.”

Placido Domingo, March 10, 2004