The final leg of the large-scale Genius of Place festival of musical tributes opens in St Petersburg on 24 September, in the city where Dmitri Shostakovich was born. Celebrations marking the 120^th anniversary of the composer’s birth will provide a fitting finale to the festival’s third season, which has brought Valery Gergiev and leading performers and ensembles from across Russia to places associated with the country’s great composers to play their music

The Mariinsky Theatre will open its new, 244^th season on 30 August, the penultimate day of summer. September will see the Mariinsky continue its celebrations of major composer anniversaries, alongside a rich mix of audience favourites and rarely heard works, returning projects and some unexpected highlights

During the off-season, box offices located inside the theatre buildings will operate on a limited schedule. Tickets for events in the new season can be purchased at any time on the Mariinsky Theatre website or via the mobile app

The Mariinsky Theatre’s eventful 243^rd season is drawing to a close. The theatrical year at Mariinsky II will conclude on 6 August with the premiere performance of Eldar Aliev’s production of Romeo and Juliet, presented as part of the Primorsky Stage’s tour. The final events of the summer at the Historic Stage will be performances of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake by the Leonid Yacobson Ballet Theatre on 7 (at 13:00 and 19:00), 8 (at 13:00 and 19:00), 9 August (at 13:00 and 19:00)

Just over a month remains before the close of the Mariinsky Theatre’s 243^rd season. By tradition, this is the moment when the theatrical year reaches its culmination. Rare, major and exclusive events – often unavailable during the regular season – appear across the theatre’s stages in a dazzling abundance. At the height of summer the concentration of stars from the world opera stage is especially remarkable. In July and early August Mariinsky Theatre productions will feature Hibla Gerzmava, Vladislav Sulimsky, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Yulia Matochkina, Alexey Markov, Elena Stikhina, Mikhail Petrenko, Olga Borodina, Tatiana Serjan, Irina Churilova and Sergei Skorokhodov