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Valery Gergiev: “We are attempting to bring to life a programme for the regions, a priority for the symphony orchestra I conduct. The regions deserve more, and I believe that the situation will change from centripetal to centrifugal.“
KRYMSK and KRASNODAR
The Krasnodar Region and the State Academic Mariinsky Theatre share a friendship dating back many years which has proved extremely fruitful. The Moscow Easter Festival has toured to the regional capital of Kuban on several occasions. The concert will be held as part of celebrations commemorating seventy-five years since the founding of the Krasnodar Region.
The first stop on the tour will be Krymsk, which has suffered from a flood. Valery Gergiev, one of the first to react to the tragedy and who donated one million roubles, will meet students and teachers of the School of Arts while a concert at the “Rus” Youth Cultural Centre will feature a performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil.
The same day, 10 September, there will be two concerts in Krasnodar at the Music Theatre of the Leonard Gatov “Premiere” Creative Association: the matinee charity concert includes the Scherzo from music for the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Felix Mendelssohn, L’Après midi d’un faune by Claude Debussy and the symphonic fantasy Francesca da Rimini by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The highlight of the tour to Kuban will be a concert performance of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor with soloists Zhanna Dombrovskaya, Sergei Skorokhodov, Vladislav Sulimsky and Eduard Tsanga and the Mariinsky Theatre Chorus and Orchestra.
LIPETSK
The first Mariinsky Theatre performance in Lipetsk took place during the Х Moscow Easter Festival on 5 May 2011. Afterwards Oleg Korolyov, Governor of the Lipetsk Region, said that “The maestro promised that he would come on a real tour...” Valery Gergiev kept his word: in the spring of 2012 Lipetsk played host to concerts as part of the chamber music programme of the XI Moscow Easter Festival (the director of the programme was Larisa Gergieva), while on 11 September 2012 there will be a concert by the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra including works by Max Bruch and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The soloist will be Sergei Roldugin (cello), People’s Artist of the Russian Federation and Professor at the St Petersburg Conservatoire.
SAMARA
The V Music Festival To Mstislav Rostropovich
The annual To Mstislav Rostropovich music festival is a tribute to the memory of the outstanding cellist and conductor. The festival, founded on the initiative of maestro Valery Gergiev, Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, and the Government of the Samara Region, takes place this year for the fifth time.
On 12 and 13 September the Samara Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre will host three concerts including highlights from operas by Charles Gounod and Gaetano Donizetti, Sergei Prokofiev’s cantata Alexander Nevsky, Johannes Brahms’ Second Symphony and Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique. The closing concert of the festival will feature a performance of Act III of the opera Siegfried by Richard Wagner with Mariinsky Theatre soloist Olga Sergeyeva and New Zealand’s tenor Simon O’Neill and the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev is a charitable event.
IRKUTSK
The Stars on Baikal festival
The Stars on Baikal festival was established on the initiative of Denis Matsuev and Irkutsk’s Zagursky Theatre in 2004 and has the support of the Governor of the Irkutsk Region and the Culture Minister of the Russian Federation. The festival runs in the first half of September and includes twelve to fourteen concerts as well as master-classes and artistic meetings. In 2012 the festival will be held for the seventh time. Initially run biennially, the festival became an integral part of the region’s cultural life and, in 2008, it was decided to hold the festival on an annual basis.
The unique nature and special significance of the Stars on Baikal festival lies in the fact that it presents the finest Russian and international musicians to residents of the Irkutsk Region, far from European Russia and remote from regular classical music concerts.
On 14 September, as part of the festival the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and Valery Gergiev together with pianist Alexander Toradze will give two concerts: the first features Dmitry Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony and Second Piano Concerto, while the second includes symphony music by Felix Mendelssohn, Claude Debussy and Pyotr Tchaikovsky as well as Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto.
KEMEROVO and OMSK
The final chord of the tour will be struck with concerts at the State Philharmonic Hall of Kuzbass in Kemerovo and the Concert Hall of the Omsk Philharmonic; both concerts will take place on the same day, 17 September, despite the fact that the venues are one thousand kilometres apart. The programme includes the Scherzo from music for the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Felix Mendelssohn, L’Après midi d’un faune by Claude Debussy and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony.
At the Omsk Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra performed for the first time in 2011 as part of the X Moscow Easter Festival at the new concert hall with its amazing acoustics and technical equipment.
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