III New Horizons festival
17 – 24 January 2010
The New Horizons festival is one of the new festivals initiated by Valery Gergiev, Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre. In the 2009–2010 season, it will be held for the third time. The festival focuses first and foremost on the performance of music by living composers and composers of the 20th century who are rarely performed and but little known in Russia. Moreover, it provides a platform not just for established performers, but for talented young talents as well. Focussing on the today and tomorrow of international music is the festival’s artistic credo.
VI Festival Maslenitsa (Shrovetide)
7 – 14 February 2010
This season, Russia’s oldest and much-loved celebration of Maslenitsa will be celebrated at the Mariinsky Theatre in particular style, and it is to be held under the banner of three great names in Russian music – Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky and Fyodor Chaliapin.
The festival opens on 7 February at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre with performances of song and dance in Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat and The Fable of the Fox, the Cock, the Tomcat and the Ram with the participation of artistes from the Demmeni Puppet Theatre, the evening continuing with the composer’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, the piano role to be performed by Alexei Volodin.
Works by Sergei Rachmaninoff occupy a special position in the festival’s concert programme. On 9 February Denis Matsuev and the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Valery Gergiev) will be performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto (Alexander Varenberg’s transcription of the great Russian composer’s Second Symphony). Moreover, Maslenitsa week will feature performances of two more of Rachmaninoff’s works – the Spring cantata and the opera The Miserly Knight.
2010’s Maslenitsa will be a festival of stars. As well as highly acclaimed pianists, there will be stars of violin music including Sergey Khachatryan and Vadim Repin, who will be performing in concert together with Itamar Golan (piano), as well as stars of the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet Companies.
Yevgeny Nikitin, one of the Mariinsky Theatre’s lead basses, will be performing the lead role in Musorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov. One special event of the festival will be a performance by outstanding Mariinsky Theatre soloists on 12 February in roles once made glorious by the great Chaliapin.
International opera star Ferruccio Furlanetto will be appearing towards the end of Maslenitsa week on 13 February in a recital at the Concert Hall.
The festival will see two ballet premieres. The first is Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Pétrouchka. It was first performed during the saisons russes in Paris in 1911. The choreographer was the legendary Michel Fokine. Fokine’s ballet was staged at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1920 by Leonid Leontiev. Today the Mariinsky Theatre is once again restoring this wonderful Stravinsky's ballet to its repertoire. The second premiere is the one-act ballet Presentiment of Spring by the young choreographer Yuri Smekalov to music by Anatoly Lyadov, which will be presented to audiences at a ballet evening on 10 February.
X International Ballet Festival MARIINSKY
15 – 25 April 2010
The international ballet festival Mariinsky was established in 2001, and is being held for the tenth time this season. The main aim of the festival is to bring world ballet stars to Russia’s cultural capital. The Mariinsky Ballet Company is known well beyond the confines of St Petersburg, but world renowned ballet stars and even more so ballet companies toured to appear in performances at the Mariinsky Theatre extremely rarely prior to the existence of the ballet festival. Since the founding of the Mariinsky ballet festival, the theatre’s stage has witnessed performances by such internationally acclaimed ballet dancers as Vladimir Malakhov, Agnès Letestu, Aurelie Dupont, Matthieu Ganio, Roberto Bolle, Maria Kowroski, Manuel Legris, Alina Cojocaru, Johan Kobborg, Paloma Herrera, Nikolai Tsiskaridze and Svetlana Zakharova.
In line with tradition, each and every festival opens with a ballet premiere of the current season and closes with a gala concert by stars of world ballet.
III International Festival Brass Evenings at the Mariinsky
XVIII Music Festival Stars of the White Nights
