• Ballet on a tour: Ottawa and Toronto
• Festival: Maslenitsa (Shrovetide)
• Upcoming productions: Ariadne auf Naxos and Dead Souls
• Formspring: feel free to ask us any question

Today our Opera company has returned from a tour in Tokyo. The Ballet company embarks on a two-week tour in Canada. In the capital, Ottawa, we will present La Bayadere, and in the country’s largest city, Toronto, — Swan Lake. Both ballets form the basis of the ballet repertoire of our theater: more than a hundred years ago, they were choreographed by Marius Petipa and are considered to be a hallmark of the Mariinsky Ballet. These classical masterpieces were performed almost uncountable number of times at the Mariinsky Theatre and in the course of numerous tours. The tour of our Ballet company in Canada promises to be an important event in the cultural life of the country — there are memorable successful performances Mariinsky Ballet in Ottawa and Toronto in the past years.

On the last calendar day of winter, 28 February, we are starting a week-long Maslenitsa (Shrovetide) Festival at the Mariinsky Theatre and the Mariinsky Concert Hall. This will be our seventh issue of the festival. Traditionally for this annual festival of our theater, and in the spirit of Shrovetide Week, the program consists of fairy-tale performances, themed by the ideas of joy, happiness, welcoming the spring and new moods, forgetting the winter and the cold, and preparing for the seven-week-long lent. The festival program includes the brightest (in terms of their story, music and graphic design) opera and ballet performances. Vocal and orchestral concerts are also presenting a festive mood. The core of the festival is formed from great masterpieces of Russian classics. One of the festival highlights will also be the latest operatic premiere of our theater — Donizetti’s melodramma giocoso L’Elisir d’Amore, which first few performances were enthusiastically received by the audience.

Since late January, just after we premiered the production of L’Elisir d’Amore, two new operatic productions are being prepared: Ariadne auf Naxos, the opera by Richard Strauss, directed by Michael Shturminger (Mariinsky Concert Hall, 8 & 10 March) and Dead Souls, the opera by Rodion Shchedrin, directed by Vasily Barkhatov (Mariinsky Theatre, 18 March). The rehearsal process is an everyday work that employs a huge number of various staff members of our theater. These are singers, stage directors, costume designers, decorators, painters, lighting staff, vocal coaches, musical consultants etc. In order for the production to become a success and its revivals to be included in the repertoire of the theater, it is important to achieve the accuracy and consistency of the team work of all participants at all steps, aimed at implementing the composer’s musical work and stage director’s ideas.

The musical language of Richard Strauss and Rodion Shchedrin is well familiar to our artists: in recent years a number of their works have been performed on stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. For both stage directors, Michael Shturminger and Vasily Barkhatov, the upcoming premieres will not be the first ones produced by them in our theater. In the time remaining before these premieres, we are thoroughly rehearsing all the details of the performances, in order for the productions to receive a justly deserved «quality mark».

We have launched an account of our theater on Formspring, a service that provides one with a facility to ask questions (without having to register and even without specifying their name) and get answers. We get updates as soon as a new question comes to us via the Formspring website, and promptly respond to questions (answers will be appearing under our Formspring account). We welcome any questions (in Russian or in English, possibly in other languages too, we’ll try to translate and understand them), but particularly we appreciate those ones that are related to our theater. Of course, feel free to ask us questions by e-mail (marketing@mariinsky.ru) or through our social media (Facebook, ВКонтакте, twitter, etc.). Formspring is a supporting service if you find it more convenient. Ask us any question right here!