• I International Festival: Contemporary Piano Faces
• New Mariinsky Label release: Shostakovich
• Berlioz at the Mariinsky: Les Troyens and Benvenuto Cellini
• March premieres revivals: Dead Souls and Ariadne auf Naxos
• Major April event: XI International Mariinsky Ballet Festival

Next week sees the start of the International Festival Contemporary Piano Faces at the Mariinsky Concert Hall. The Festival being held for the first time, provides an opportunity to explore a wide range of compositions for piano performed by eminent pianists of our time: the ones that are still young and those who have already built a successful career of a musician.

Next Monday will be the official release day for our next release on the Mariinsky Label, own record label of the Mariinsky Theatre. Continuing to explore the legacy of Dmitri Shostakovich, in addition to those already released on the Mariinsky Label Symphonies 1, 2, 11 and 15, as well as the opera The Nose, the Chorus and the Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre conducted by Valery Gergiev had recorded the Third and the Tenth Symphonies by one of the greatest classics of 20th century.

Two major operatic works by Hector Berlioz will be presented at the Mariinsky Theatre and Mariinsky Concert Hall very soon: Les Troyens and Benvenuto Cellini. Both operas are performed in the original language, revealing the beauty of the sound of French speech, which is emphasized by lush symphonic music so gorgeously composed by Berlioz.

Recently released productions of operas Dead Souls by Rodion Shchedrin and Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss are now a part of permanent repertoire of our theater. In April, we are presenting them once again, each for the first time since their premieres at the Mariinsky Theatre and Mariinsky Concert Hall.

Three weeks later 11th International Ballet Festival Mariinsky kicks off. For 11 consecutive evenings the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre will be given only to ballet performances. One of the significant events of the festival will be the premiere of Le Parc set to the music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj.