On 4, 5 and 6 July the Mariinsky Theatre will be hosting performances by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The performances are taking part during a major European tour marking the fiftieth anniversary of the theatre’s core production — the ballet Revelations. Robert Battle, the company’s Artistic Director, is advising Russian audiences to “be ready for something totally stunning”. He says that the tour programme is highly unique, explaining that it will be “something like a ‘buffet’ serving up all kinds of American treats”.

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida, one of the well received premieres of the season 2010/11 presented at the Stars of the White Nights Festival in mid-June, will be performed at the Mariinsky Concert Hall thrice till the end of this season: on 8, 9 and 29 July. The production, staged by a famous film director, writer, choreographer and clown Daniele Finzi Pasca, has raised a high public interest and attention: Verdi’s masterpiece was given a new realisation on stage, completely turning the stereotype of the opera. In this performance, the director invites the viewer to think about the beauty, about the strength of its effect on a human, including thinking about how to change the world through singing. This production of Aida, according to Finzi Pasca, “... creates an atmosphere of involvement in the play as a hockey stadium when the audience starts to cheer for the players, being in close proximity with the actors”.

Four recitals: on 6, 7, 9 and 10 July, at the Mariinsky Concert Hall will complete a full cycle of Thirty-Two Piano Sonatas by Beethoven performed by a renowned pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, well-known for his interpretations of the music of Viennese classics. Exploration of Beethoven Piano Sonatas in a single cycle, which Rudolf Buchbinder began in June, was one of the most significant events of the Stars of the White Nights Festival this year and found a strong support from numerous concert-goers, many of whom attended a few recitals by the pianist, in order to gain a unique opportunity to explore the development of the genre of piano sonata by Beethoven. In the sonatas, Beethoven made use of the form only as an academic genre, which fades into background, and each sonata presents a unique, original artistic vision. In four recitals left to complete the cycle, Rudolf Buchbinder will present a series of best-known sonatas that have received individual titles (e.g. Hammerklavier, Appassionata etc.), and in the final recital of this cycle, which will be on July 10th, the last three sonatas, full of profound philosophical meditation and aura of mystery that shrouded the latest creation of the composer, will be performed.

Over four consecutive evenings, from 6 to 9 July, the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev will perform at the Music Festival in the Finnish town of Mikkeli. The annual Festival, owing a long-term tradition, as its core, based upon a series of performances by the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra. This year sees the 20th Festival edition. Almost always taking place in early July, the Festival is sort of adjacent to the St Petersburg Stars of the White Nights Festival. Both music forums are united by the charming environment of bright “white nights”, observed every summer in northern latitudes, as well as by the intensity, richness and variety of Festival concert programmes. This year, Festival concerts, along with the soloists of the Opera and the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, will feature musicians that often and closely collaborate with the Mariinsky Theatre: Yuri Bashmet, Denis Matsuev, Alexander Toradze. Performances by these world-class musicians who could be regarded as the true friends of our theater, ought to create a friendly atmosphere of concerts, where hard work of musicians brings them a real pleasure and “infects” all concert-goers with their positive musical mission.

During the week from 11 to 16 July, the Mariinsky Ballet, the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev take part in the prestigious Lincoln Center Festival in New York. The Mariinsky Theatre is perhaps the only theater, which various teams have repeatedly taken part in this Festival, known for its concept of representing various genres of arts in the venues of the cultural complex of Lincoln Center, which daily attracts huge numbers of different art admirers. Mariinsky Theatre teams (our Opera, Ballet, Orchestra) performed in New York on numerous occasions over the past 20 years, each time making a very special appearance in the Festival programme.

This year, the stage of the largest building within the Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, will see ballets set to music by Rodion Shchedrin, whose works came in the repertoire of the Mariinsky Theatre in recent years: The Little Humpbacked Horse and Anna Karenina (both choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky), as well as Carmen Suite (music by Georges Bizet and Rodion Shchedrin), choreographed by Alberto Alonso, and Symphony in C by Georges Bizet, choreography by George Balanchine, a choreographer, whose triumphant career began at the Mariinsky Theatre and then went on foundation and management of the world-famous New York City Ballet company. The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky is well-known to Russian and American audiences for his works staged at the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky Theatres, as well as in the famous American Ballet Theatre company. Thus, a cultural “bridge” between the cities of New York and St Petersburg is installed to be completely solid, once again demonstrating a precise and thoughtful approach to the Lincoln Center Festival programming.