Highlights:
• Over eight weeks the festival will present around one hundred performances and concerts featuring over forty guest performers and opera and ballet soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre as well as the theatre’s chorus and symphony orchestra
• Festival premieres: Modest Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov staged by Graham Vick; George Balanchine’s two-act ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream to music by Felix Mendelssohn; and Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem staged by Daniele Finzi Pasca
• A festival within a festival – New Horizons at the Jaani Kirik concert hall
• Modest Musorgsky’s Khovanshchina celebrating the festival’s twentieth anniversary, featuring Olga Borodina and Vladimir Galuzin under the baton of Valery Gergiev.
• Guest musicians at the festival:
Pianists: Rafał Blechacz, Christian Blackshaw, Yefim Bronfman, Rudolf Buchbinder, Yuja Wang, Hélène Grimaud, Daniil Trifonov, Andrei Korobeinikov, Nikolai Lugansky, Denis Matsuev, Eldar Nebolsin, Alice Sara Ott, Nobuyuki Tsujii, Igor Tchetuev and Markus Schirmer.
Violinists: Leonidas Kavakos, Rainer Honeck, Nikolaj Znaider, Pinchas Zuckerman and Janine Jansen.
Cellists: Pavel Gomzyakov, Alexander Ivashkin, Ivan Karizna, Gavriel Lipkind and Ivan Monighetti.
Renowned Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie will perform under Valery Gergiev for the first time with the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra.
• Guest companies at the festival: the Symphony Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala under Fabio Luisi and Valery Gergiev, ensemble of soloists of the Wiener Philharmoniker, Quintet of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Borromeo string quartet.
• Opera stars at the festival: Olga Borodina, Anna Netrebko, Maria Guleghina, Ekaterina Gubanova, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Vladimir Galuzin, Ildar Abdrazakov, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Aleksandrs Antoņenko.
• The festival’s Brahms’ programme: all of Brahms’ symphonies and instrumental concerti conducted by Valery Gergiev.
• The chamber series All of Mozart’s Sonatas performed by Christian Blackshaw.
The XX Stars of the White Nights festival runs from 25 May to 15 July. The festival opens with a premiere of a new production of Modest Musorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina staged by Graham Vick under the baton of Valery Gergiev with Yevgeny Nikitin in the lead role. The opera will also be performed on 26 May and 26 June.
At the Concert Hall, 26 May will see the festival’s first programme of symphony music featuring Chulpan Khamatova and Yevgeny Mironov, cellist and prize-winner at the XIV Tchaikovsky Competition Ivan Karizna and opera soloist Sergei Semishkur under the baton of Valery Gergiev.
The innovative Daniele Finzi Pasca is rehearsing another Verdi festival premiere following last year’s Aida. This year he will be staging the composer’s Requiem.
The festival’s ballet playbill includes a premiere of one of Balanchine’s few ballets with a plot – the choreographer’s incredibly beautiful magical fairytale A Midsummer Night’s Dream to music by Mendelssohn (6, 7 and 17 June). Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky will be returning to the theatre’s repertoire (14 and 15 July).
Traditionally, the festival’s programme of symphony music is based on the music of a specific major composer. This year’s monograph symphony programmes will be dedicated to Johannes Brahms: Valery Gergiev will conduct all four of the composer’s symphonies as well as his instrumental concerti (13, 15, 21 and 29 June). Rudolf Buchbinder and Yefim Bronfman will perform the solos in Brahms’ First and Second Piano Concerti respectively. Nikolaj Znaider will perform the Violin Concerto (15 June), while Pinchas Zuckerman and cellist Amanda Forsyth will be performing the composer’s Double Concerto. Over four evenings, all of Mozart’s sonatas will be performed by British academic pianist Christian Blackshaw (4, 5, 6 and 7 July).
The anniversary festival will see acclaimed musicians from across the globe come together. Guest star violinists at the festival are to include Leonidas Kavakos on a return visit (19 June). New festival friends will also be appearing, among them Dutch violinist Janine Jansen with Prokofiev’s incredibly beautiful Violin Concerto No 2 (9 June). Concertmaster of the Wiener Philharmoniker and the orchestra of the Wiener Staatsoper, violinist and conductor Rainer Honeck will be returning to St Petersburg with a stunning programme of Austrian music that has already proved a sensation at the Concert Hall: in one concert Honeck will once again be performing works by Mozart and the Strausses (30 June).
The list of outstanding pianists is also rather impressive. There will be recitals by French pianist Hélène Grimaud on 18 June (sonatas by Mozart, Berg, Liszt and Bartók) as well as the outstanding young German-born pianist of Japanese descent Alice Sara Ott (3 July). Under the baton of Valery Gergiev, the orchestra will perform programmes featuring soloists Markus Schirmer with Mozart’s Twenty-Third Concerto (30 May), Nikolai Lugansky with Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto (5 June), Igor Tchetuev with Scriabin’s Concerto (6 June), Daniil Trifonov with Glazunov’s Concerto (16 June) and Denis Matsuev with Liszt’s First Concerto (22 June).
Young Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, prize-winner at the Van Cliburn Competition (2009), will be performing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto together with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev in addition to appearing at the Concert Hall with recitals featuring works by Beethoven, Liszt and Musorgsky (8 and 10 July).
One of the festival’s old friends, Denis Matsuev will be presenting his programme Matsuev and Friends for the first time; the programme will introduce St Petersburg audiences to young musicians Sergei Krylov, Boris Brovtsyn, Yulia Daineka and Alexander Buzlov (20 June).
Full symphony orchestras appearing at the festival include the Symphony Orchestra of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. Under the baton of Valery Gergiev the orchestra will perform Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique (27 June), the solo that evening to be performed by young Chinese-American pianist Yuja Wang, who enjoys a reputation as an incredible virtuoso. The following day the Mariinsky Theatre will be performing under maestro Fabio Luisi, with Rafał Blechacz performing the solo in a concerto by Beethoven (28 June).
Moreover, renowned full orchestras will be represented by chamber ensembles – the Wiener Philharmoniker by The Philharmonics ensemble of soloists on 31 May and the Berliner Philharmoniker by its Quintet of Soloists on 26 June).
In addition to festival premieres, the ballet programme will include the finest productions in the repertoire as well as recent premieres, among them Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, Le Parc, Diana Vishneva: Dialogues and ballets by George Balanchine in addition to La Bayadère, Swan Lake, Giselle and Romeo and Juliet. Performances will feature the company’s finest soloists, among them Ulyana Lopatkina, Diana Vishneva, Viktoria Teryoshkina, Alina Somova, Ekaterina Kondaurova, Danila Korsuntsev, Vladimir Shklyarov and Alexander Sergeyev.
Dazzling duos of world opera stars will feature in several performances: Ferruccio Furlanetto and Maria Guleghina will be performing the lead roles in Verdi’s Attila under the baton of Valery Gergiev (9 July), while Maria Guleghina and Vladimir Galuzin will be appearing in their finest roles in the opera Tosca under the baton of Andrea Battistoni (11 July).
Ekaterina Gubanova, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Alexei Markov and Sergei Semishkur will be performing the solos in scenes from Hector Berlioz’ opera Les Troyens (30 May, Concert Hall). Olga Borodina, Maxim Aksenov and Vladimir Galuzin will be performing under Valery Gergiev in Musorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina to mark the anniversary of the Stars of the White Nights festival (31 May). Tenor Aleksandrs Antoņenko will appear in the title role in a concert performance of Verdi’s opera Otello to be conducted by Valery Gergiev (10 June). Anna Kiknadze and Maxim Aksenov will be performing the lead roles in Bizet’s opera Carmen under maestro Pablo Heras-Casado (15 June). Ildar Abdrazakov will appear in one of the season’s premieres – Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (24 June).
Stars of the Mariinsky Opera Company Olga Borodina and Anna Netrebko will be performing in recital on 4 June and 14 June respectively.
For the first time during the Stars of the White Nights festival there will also be a festival called New Horizons, to be held at the Concert Hall of the theatre and the hall of the Jaani Kirik (54 Decembrists’ Street, opposite the Concert Hall). From 2 to 7 June at the festival’s concerts there will be performances of music by composers including Raskatov, Kancheli, Ustvolskaya, Silvestrov, Kneifel, Lutosławski and Tüür. The New Horizons festival draws to a close on 7 June with a performance of Alexander Raskatov’s work Three Cellos which was commissioned by the Mariinsky Theatre; renowned cellists Alexander Ivashkin, Gavriel Lipkind and Ivan Monighetti will be performing the solos.
Valery Gergiev will be conducting two of the New Horizons concerts, while another will see Estonian conductor and violinist Andres Mustonen lead the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra for the first time.
General partner and sponsor of the premiere of Modest Musorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov:
Bank VTB
Principal partners:
Sberbank of Russia Ltd; Yoko Ceschina; Gazprom Ltd; JT International
Principal sponsors:
TOTAL; BP
Sponsors:
MDM Bank Ltd; BOMBARDIER; Sistema Joint-Stock Financial Corporation
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