26.03.2021

A guide to the April playbill

Dear Guests,
The playbill up to 3 May is available on the Mariinsky Theatre website. To avoid any possible confusion due to the large number of works being performed, we are publishing a brief guide to the main events.

Five evenings of the harp and the flute
The dual instrumental festival Virtuosi of the Flute and The Northern Lyre will run from 7 to 12 April at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre. The festival's founders, flautist Denis Lupachev and harpist Sofia Kiprskaya, have invited their colleagues to participate in this event – among them the finest Russian performers and soloists from leading orchestras. The flute and the harp are frequently allotted the role of being particularly orchestral instruments. The musicians, however, are promising to dispel this view: the programmes for the five evenings have provided room for both classical refinement and jazz (a special programme on 11 April) in addition to new music. The harp and flute will be appearing in all manner of combinations, some of them highly unusual.

New operas in the repertoire
The period of quarantine and the forced abandonment of normal theatre life afforded opera singers of the Mariinsky Theatre the opportunity to discover new works and roles. The April playbill will again see both new and revived operas: Lakmé by Léo Delibes (3 April), Les Contes d'Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach (14 April), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner (17 April) and Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss (11 April). There will be a concert performance of Catterino Cavos' Ivan Susanin, postponed from September.

A week of Shchedrin
Yet another festival event on the April playbill comes with a series of works by Rodion Shchedrin in the latter half of the month: the symphonic tale The Adventures of a Monkey, the premiere of which was presented by the orchestra and Polina Malikova (Tolstun) as the Narrator in the autumn, the operas The Enchanted Wanderer, Boyarina Morozova and The Lefthander and the ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse.

Stars in concerts and performances at the Mariinsky
Soprano Albina Shagimuratova will be presenting a chamber music programme at the Concert Hall on 30 April. Ekaterina Semenchuk and Hibla Gerzmava will feature in an opera gala at the historic Mariinsky Theatre on 21 April, and on 18 April Mongolian baritone Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar will be giving a recital. Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto will be coming to St Petersburg to sing one of his favourite roles – that of Don Quichotte in the eponymous opera by Massenet. Audiences may also look forward to the long-awaited Carmen-Suite with Diana Vishneva.

Balanchine and Britten
At the historic theatre, in April there will be performances of ballets by the great American choreographer George Balanchine. Audiences will see the virtuoso Symphony in C and Jewels. The stage will also host the return of another work by Balanchine, this time featuring a plot, with a series of performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream based on the comedy by William Shakespeare to run from 16 to 18 April. The English theme will continue with a performance of Benjamin Britten's famous chamber opera The Turn of the Screw, in which the ghosts of Henry James' novella acquire voices. The role of Myles is to be sung by Andrei Dalyoky, a pupil at the Glinka Choral School.

Valery Gergiev conducts
In April, the maestro will be conducting performances of The Queen of Spades, Tristan und Isolde, Semyon Kotko, Boris Godunov and The Tsar's Bride. For the first time in a long time, on 12 April at the New Stage there will be a performance of Salome staged by Marat Gatsalov.

Any use or copying of site materials, design elements or layout is forbidden without the permission of the rightholder.
user_nameExit