A tour to Great Britain

The tour route of the Mariinsky Opera Company, Chorus and Orchestra kicks off in the Welsh city of Cardiff. On 31 March at the Donald Gordon Theatre of the Wales Millennium Centre Gergiev will be conducting a concert performance of Richard Wagner’s triumphant stage mystery Parsifal, one of the greatest examples of Gergiev’s “Wagneriana”. This key work for the Mariinsky Theatre will also be performed during the tour in London on 3 April and in Birmingham on 6 April. The lead roles in Parsifal will be performed by singers including Avgust Amonov, Larisa Gogolevskaya, Yuri Vorobiev, Yevgeny Nikitin, Nikolai Putilin, Vladimir Felyauer and Alexei Tanovitsky.

On 1 April, the second day of the British tour, there will be a performance of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (Symphony of a Thousand). This concert will also be held at the Donald Gordon Theatre which seats an audience of two thousand and is part of a major contemporary arts venue in Cardiff that plays host to theatre productions, concerts, exhibitions and various society events.

From Cardiff the Mariinsky Theatre performers will set out for the British capital. During their two-day stop at the Barbican Hall the programme includes, in addition to Wagner’s stage mystery, Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem which will be performed on 4 April with a cast featuring Olga Borodina, Viktoria Yastrebova, Ildar Abdrazakov and Sergei Semishkur.

The concerts will see appearances by several choruses including the BBC National Chorus of Wales, the Tiffin Boys’ Choir and the children’s chorus Only Kids Aloud, which was established especially for the performance with the Mariinsky Theatre in Cardiff.
Mariinsky Theatre singers and the Only Kids Aloud chorus first performed together under the baton of Valery Gergiev on 23 March at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, and it was Mahler’s Eighth Symphony that was selected for their debut during the British tour.