A tour to France

Salle Pleyel in Paris

The Mariinsky Theatre’s touring schedule for 2013 opens with a tour by the Mariinsky Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of Maestro Gergiev featuring a series of concerts of music by Dmitry Shostakovich at two renowned venues in France – the Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Halle aux Grains in Toulouse.

A series of works by Shostakovich lasting two years which includes all of this outstanding 20^th century composer’s symphonies and instrumental concerti opens on 7 January at the illustrious Salle Pleyel in Paris. This series marks a new stage in the maestro’s performing career, continuing and developing his most recent projects to perform all of Shostakovich’s symphony music at concert halls in Russia, the USA, Great Britain, Austria and Germany.
The Paris series includes eight concerts. The programmes of each combine early and mature opuses, setting the young Shostakovich alongside Shostakovich the acclaimed composer. The programme for the first concert features the earliest (Nos 1 and 2) and the last (No 15) symphonies by the Russian composer as well as his Second Piano Concerto with Denis Matsuev performing the solo.

On the second evening (8 January) French audiences will hear the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev perform the Third and Thirteenth Symphonies. In the latter (Babi Yar), written to verse by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the solo will be performed by lead Mariinsky Theatre bass Mikhail Petrenko, prize-winner at international competitions. This concert will also feature Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto, the solo to be performed by internationally renowned cellist Mario Brunello.

The Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev then depart for the Halle aux Grains concert hall in Toulouse in the south of France. This venue is located in one of the city’s most interesting buildings, a market from 1864 and a sports complex from 1952. Renowned French conductor Michel Plasson, a former Principal Conductor of the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse (that post is currently occupied by Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev), noted the unique architectural and acoustic qualities of the building. He convinced the city authorities that the Halle aux Grains would make an ideal concert hall, and since 1974 the building has been the permanent home of the Toulouse orchestra. Work undertaken in the late 1980s using the very latest technical innovations transformed the Halle aux Grains into a magnificent concert hall of international acclaim seating two and a half thousand people. Here on 9 January the Mariinsky Orchestra under Maestro Gergiev will be performing Shostakovich’s First and Tenth Symphonies and his Second Cello Concerto, the solo this time being performed by French cellist Edgar Moreau, one of the most talented young performers of our time who, at the age of seventeen, became a prize-winner at the Tchaikovsky Competition.