Composer Igor Matvienko celebrated his 65th birthday with the opera "Prince Vladimir"

Igor Matvienko, People's Artist of Russia and composer, is celebrating his 65th birthday. Usually he prefers to stay behind the scenes, but on his birthday, February 6, he will still take to the stage in his own ethno-opera Prince Vladimir, where he will play one of the key roles - the Scandinavian god Odin, Izvestiya correspondent reported.

Igor Matvienko devoted more than half of his life to music. On his account more than a hundred songs, which are popular even decades later. The opera "Prince Vladimir" is the result of 13 years of meticulous work of the composer, his, perhaps, the most ambitious and most daring project.

"I wish him health and, of course, new ideas. Because he is an incredibly creative person, talented, gifted, who really left a huge mark in the musical history of our country", - said the leader of the band "Lyube" Nikolai Rastorguev.

As the birthday boy himself noted, if someone is more organic on stage, he feels more comfortable behind the scenes.

"And I consider myself very lucky. Because producing, much less writing music, is absolutely such a secluded area of creativity, in no way connected at all with a large number of people," Matvienko told correspondent Maxim Prikhoda.

In the mid-1980s, Igor Igorevich became the first Soviet producer, when such a concept did not even exist on the stage yet. Gathering with the members of the ensemble "Hello, Song!", he became among others - the generator of ideas of the collective.

"We first gathered all on equal terms, but I realized that he was the generator of ideas of musical all. We did not agree, everyone perceived him as our musical director," - said the soloist of the group "Moral Code" Sergey Mazaev.

Around the same time, in the late 80's, Matvienko met Rastorguev, and then soon the band "Lyube" burst onto the stage with a brigade of gaudy hooligans. And then very accurately hit the nerve with songs about the Motherland and those entrusted by fate to defend it. Thus, the composer's songs both in the early 1990s and to this day remain the soundtrack of Russian reality.

Igor's "Prince": the composer's ethno-opera about Vladimir was met with applause

The Kremlin Palace recited the Jesus Prayer, sang a Russian song in the Viking language and impressed with a wooden ship

Earlier in the day it was reported that after 10 years of preparation Matvienko presented his ethno-opera"Prince Vladimir", timed to the 65th anniversary of the composer. Two evenings - February 5 and 6 - in the State Kremlin Palace, fans will join the high art. "Izvestia" visited the premiere, which was held with a full house.