The Mariinsky’s Stars of the White Nights International Music Festival directed by Valery Gergiev will be held from May 24 to July 17, in St Petersburg for the thirtieth time. The program is going to be published in installments; as of today, there is a playbill up until June 13 available on the website.
The anniversary festival opens with Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake and Sergei Prokofiev's epic opera War and Peace staged by Andrei Konchalovsky. Traditionally, the playbill features a lot of works by Wagner. The tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, the operas Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser and Parsifal are planned to be performed.
Valery Gergiev will also pay tribute to the music of the French romantic Hector Berlioz whose operas Les Troyens and Benvenuto Cellini will be presented at the festival. They are dedicated to the 175th anniversary of the composer's historical tour in Russia. During the festival, it will be possible to see all this season’s new titles in the repertoire including Rossini's La Cenerentola and L’italiana in Algeri, Mozart's Idomeneo, re di Creta and Ponchielli's La Gioconda. World opera stars and leading Russian singers will be taking part in the performances.
The playbill of the festival is as always full of surprises. As for premieres, Mariinsky has already announced a new production of Boris Tishchenko's ballet The Twelve (July 14, Mariinsky-2). The production will be directed and choreographed by Alexander Sergeev together with the designer Leonid Alekseev (costumes and scenography), Konstantin Binkin (lighting), Ekaterina Kondaurova (assistant choreographer and one of the leading dancers). This is Mariinsky's second approach to this score, the first production of the ballet The Twelve being staged in 1964 by Leonid Yakobson.
The playbill is also to feature an evening in honor of ballet teacher Lyubov Kunakova and a joint benefit performance by principal dancers Victoria Tereshkina and Vladimir Shklyarov. In June, there will be graduation performances of the Vaganova ballet academy at the historical stage.
There is a usual abundance of concert programs. In the first week of the festival Nikolai Lugansky is expected to have a solo recital. Also, there will be another festival within the festival - a series of concerts entitled Brass of the White Nights, dedicated to brass instruments. It can be assumed that the laureates of the first Rachmaninoff Competition held this summer in Moscow will be invited to perform at the Mariinsky. Numerous concerts and semi-staged opera performances will take place in the Rachmaninoff Chamber Hall.
The 30th Stars of the White Nights International Music Festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The artistic director of the festival is Valery Gergiev.
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