On 24 May at the Mariinsky Theatre Valery Gergiev gave a press-conference dedicated to the opening of the XX Stars of the  White Nights International Music Festival (25 May – 15 July)

On 31 May in Modest Musorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina Vladimir Galouzine will be performing the role of Vasily Golitsyn for the first time, while Maxim Aksenov will be making his debut as Andrei Khovansky

On 22 May Valery Gergiev was awarded a special Gorky Prize “For his outstanding contribution to the development of world culture”

On 24 May at 17:00 there will be a press conference with Valery Gergiev dedicated to the XX Stars of the White Nights music festival

Valery Gergiev has been named an Honorary Member of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft

The Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra will be performing under Valery Gergiev in Dresden and Salzburg on 27 and 28 May

The Mariinsky label’s discs featuring recordings of works by Jules Massenet, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich and Rodion Shchedrin have received further accolades from the international press

On 13 May Timur Askerov will be making his debut as Ferkhad in Arif Melikov’s ballet The Legend of Love (choreography by Yuri Grigorovich)

Ballet dancers Yekaterina Kondaurova, Oxana Skorik, Kim Kimin and Timur Askerov have been nominated for and received several prestigious awards

On 10 May Vladimir Shklyarov and Konstantin Zverev will be making their debuts as Ferkhad and the Vizier respectively in Yuri Grigorovich’s ballet The Legend of Love to music by Arif Melikov