"The Stars of the White Nights 2015" 27 May - 2 August 2015 Mariinsky Theatre, New Theatre and Concert Hall Artistic Director: Maestro Valery Gergiev

About "The Stars of the White Nights" Festivals

Artistic Director – Maestro Valery Gergiev
Mariinsky Theatre, New Theatre 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 2015

The XXIII Stars of the White Nights festival is being run with a focus on Tchaikovsky to mark one hundred and seventy-five years since the birth of the great Russian composer. The festival opens with a new production of the opera The Queen of Spades directed by Alexei Stepanyuk and conducted by Valery Gergiev. All of Tchaikovsky’s operas and ballets in the theatre’s repertoire will also be performed at the festival – Eugene Onegin, Iolanta, Mazepa, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

One special facet comes with the rounds of the vocalists at the International Tchaikovsky Competition which will take place at the Mariinsky-II. The third round and the gala concert will be held at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre. Jury members Olga Borodina and Mikhail Petrenko, pianists Barry Douglas and Denis Matsuev, cellist Lynn Harrell and violinists Leonidas Kavakos and James Ehnes will be performing recitals as well as together with the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Gergiev.

Festival premieres include a new production of Verdi’s opera La traviata (directed by Claudia Solti and designed by Isabella Bywater), a concert performance of Dallapiccolla’s opera Il prigioniero and the premiere of Maxim Petrov’s one-act ballet Le Divertissement du Roi, specially staged for Principal Dancer Igor Kolb.

As always, performances at the Mariinsky Theatre will feature international opera stars including Ferruccio Furlanetto, Rafał Siwek, Vitaly Kovalev, Oksana Dyka, Mikhail Kazakov, Albina Shagimuratova, Maria Guleghina, Tatiana Serjan, Marco Berti, Gevorg Akopyan, Asmik Grigorian and Aleksandrs Antonenko. At the Concert Hall and at the new theatre there will be concert with such outstanding international musicians as Daniil Trifonov, Pinchas Zukerman, Ilya Gringolts, Pyotr Laul, Alexei Volodin, Christian Blackshaw. The festival will see several monograph programmes – the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Paavo Järvi in two concerts of all of Brahms’ symphonies, Viennese pianist Rudolf Buchbinder will be appearing as a soloist and conductor in nine Mozart concerti and the Atrium quartet will be performing Beethoven’s “Russian” quartets.

The Mariinsky Orchestra will be conducted by world-renowned conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Emmanuel Villaume, Vladimir Ashkenazi and John Axelrod.
Over the sixty-eight days of the festival at the theatre’s three main venues alone there will be one hundred and seventy-five concerts and performances.