"The Stars of the White Nights" International Ballet and Opera Festival (25 May 2012 - 15 July 2012)

Artistic Director – Maestro Valery Gergiev
Mariinsky Theatre and Mariinsky Theatre Opera and Concert Hall

The Stars of the White Nights is one of the brightest stars of the music and theatre universe and has emerged to be one of the most popular and grandiose music forums in its context and scale.

The Stars of the White Nights Festival was created in 1993 by Valery Gergiev, Mariinsky Theatre Artistic and General Director. Maestro Gergiev says that he conceived the first Festival as a "musical gift" to the city from the Mariinsky and its star-artists. From the very beginning the Festival has been focused on the masterpieces of the world's music discovering for its audience some rarely performed or undeservedly forgotten pieces.

The Stars of the White Nights Festival has gained in strength, popularity and international acclaim. The duration for the Festival it has expanded from ten days to three months during the last sixteen year. Renowned conductors and star-artists take as great honour the invitation to perform at the Stars of the White Nights. Each year the Festival programme includes the Theater's finest opera and ballet productions, great symphonic works, masterpieces of chamber music and new premieres.

During the last years the Festival programme has included the works created by the great classical composers – Beethoven symphonies, Prokofiev's and Tchaikovsky's operas, ballets and symphony music. Major events at the Stars have included the production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, in addition to the Shostakovich and Mahler Symphonies series.

This festival is a must for ballet, opera and classical music amateurs. The annual Stars of the White Nights Festival takes an inspiration for its name from the short summer season when the sun never sets, and the beauty of St-Petersburg White Nights contributes to the festival's special atmosphere and its world-class programme of concerts, as audience comes out of the historic theatre at midnight into daylight to stroll along the streets of the theatrical setting of St Petersburg.

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"The Stars of the White Nights 2012" International Music Festival
25 May - 15 July 2012
Mariinsky Theatre and the Concert Hall
Artistic Director: Maestro Valery Gergiev

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

• A festival within a festival – New Horizons at the Jaani Kirik concert hall

• Guest companies at the festival: the Symphony Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala under Fabio Luisi and Maestro Valery Gergiev, ensemble of soloists of the Wiener Philharmoniker, Quintet of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Borromeo string quartet.

Maestro Valery Gergiev.
Click to enlarge

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). Maestro 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 and 6 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 Rainer 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 Helene Grimaud on 18 June ( sonatas by Mozart, Berg, Liszt and Bartok) 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 Rafal 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.

or 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, Lutoslawski and Tuur. 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