Sergei Nakariakov: No more Wunderkind

Directed by Jan Schmidt-Garre

Portrait of a trumpeter

"The Caruso of the trumpet," critics say. "Caruso? The Nakariakov of the tenor voice," they'll say soon. Portrait of the 27-year old genius from Gorki. Sergei Nakariakov, trumpetist from Nizhny Novgorod living in Paris is a phenomenon. He plays the trumpet with a unique virtuosity and at the same time leaves this virtuosity behind. He doesn't play the trumpet, he sings it. He phrases like the great Bel Canto singers who aimed at the true legato. The film presents the 27-year-old musician at his best but it also shows the victim of a soviet child prodigy biography. The mature Nakariakov's breathtaking virtuosity is contrasted with footage of the child whose lips are sore from practicing. Is it true that Sergei was "never a wunderkind", as he claims in the interview?