July 21st and 23rd at the Mariinsky Concert Hall will see the last premiere of the season 2010/11 — Benjamin Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Claudia Solti, under the musical direction of Valery Gergiev. This production will mark Claudia Solti’s theatrical debut: prior to that, she worked on movie projects. The upcoming production features acrobats, its costumes are rather versatile, the designer directs the stage space with the usage of mirrors, and in general, the performance style reminds that of fantasy. Britten, who wrote the opera in 1960, gave their own musical language to each of the groups of characters (the lovers, fairies, elves, craftsmen). There are also quite unusual features. For example, the main male role of Oberon is written for countertenor. Instead of the usual chorus, the opera features a children’s choir. In the elven scenes (and not only them) orchestra sounds soft, transparent, as if weightless. It should be noted that the role of the weaver Bottom on July 21st will be performed by the famous bass-baritone Willard White, well-known to St Petersburg audiences for his appearances at Mariinsky Concert Hall (recitals, opera parts in performances of Tristan und Isolde, Das Rheingold, La Damnation de Faust and, of course, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle).

On July 25th, in London, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, a three-week tour of the Mariinsky Ballet starts. The tour marks the 50th anniversary of the first visit of the Ballet Company of our theater to the United Kingdom (at that time, the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre). That remarkable visit of the 50-year-old time had become a true success that demonstrated the achievements of Russian and Soviet ballet. It launched a start to the triumphant, positive public recognition of the Mariinsky Ballet all over the world, showing the glory of the art of ballet, because of its impact on the viewer, regardless of the political situation and relations between states. Moreover, in some cases, such successful tours used to serve as post facto mechanisms for bringing together simple people and their common interests. Like 50 years ago, the current tour organised with the participation of the legendary British impresario Victor Hochhauser.

During the three weeks of the London tour, we will present a wide range of performances. There will be some classical productions, real masterpieces of the Mariinsky Ballet such as: Swan Lake, Don Quixote and La Bayadère. And evening-homages: to Michel Fokine, who created a unique style of the Ballets Russes at the beginning of the 20th century (Chopiniana, Scheherazade and The Firebird), and to George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, founders and directors of the well-known New York City Ballet (Scotch Symphony, In the Night, Ballet Imperial).We will also present one of the recent premieres of the our theater — Anna Karenina, set to music by Rodion Shchedrin, choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. This ballet was already presented three times on each tour: in Moscow (March 2011, at the National Theatre Festival Golden Mask) and, literally, last week — in New York City (at the Metropolitan Opera, within the framework of the Lincoln Center Festival). The work caused a wide variety of views from critics and audience emotions, leaving no one indifferent.

Learn more about the performances on this tour at the official websites of Victor Hochhauser and Covent Garden (you can also purchase tickets there).

July 26th at the Mariinsky Theatre will see a performance of Die Frau ohne Schatten, an opera by Richard Strauss, staged by Jonathan Kent, under the baton of Valery Gergiev. The premiere of this opera at the Mariinsky Theatre took place in November 2009. Besides St Petersburg, since then, the production was presented on tours of our theater in Moscow (in February 2010), Ljubljana (in August 2010) and Tokyo (in February 2011). In April 2011, at the awards ceremony of the National Theatre Festival Golden Mask in Moscow, our production of Die Frau ohne Schatten was named The Best Opera Production. Another Golden Mask award for this performance was given to Paul Brown as Best Work by a Designer in Musical Theatre. In its review of this production, the newspaper Kultura wrote of the «aesthetic revolution in opera», calling the production «a thrilling spectacle». In turn, the newspaper Kommersant commented that Die Frau ohne Schatten has allowed us to learn a new side to Valery Gergiev — «the Mariinsky’s demiurge has developed into a tender and soft lyricist». The orchestration of this opera is truly luxurious. Strauss wrote the score in such way, that often each individual musician plays a solo within a group of instruments, creating a unique ensemble of musicians within the orchestra.