A festival summer: a tour by Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra

Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra are commencing a significant tour to cities throughout Europe, during which they will visit six major music festivals.

On 23 August Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra will be appearing at the acclaimed Edinburgh International Festival (Great Britain). That evening the Usher Hall will see maestro Gergiev conduct works by 20^th century composers in a performance featuring two ensembles: the Mariinsky Orchestra will present Sergei Prokofiev's Classical First Symphony, while the Royal Scottish National Orchestra will perform Benjamin Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. In the programme's finale the orchestras will come together to give a joint performance of Dmitry Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony.

The performances at the Baltic Sea Festival (Sweden) on 25 and 26 August will be dedicated to Richard Wagner. On 25 August at the Berwaldhallen Concert Hall there will be a concert performance of Act III of the opera Parsifal by soloists of the Mariinsky Opera and the Mariinsky Orchestra as well as the Swedish Royal Opera Chorus, while on 26 August there will be a rendition of the opera Das Rheingold. The vocal roles will be performed by Zhanna Dombrovskaya (soprano), Oxana Shilova (soprano), Zlata Bulycheva (mezzo-soprano), Anna Kiknadze (mezzo-soprano), Yulia Matochkina (mezzo-soprano), Yekaterina Sergeyeva (mezzo-soprano), Oleg Balashov (tenor), Andrei Popov (tenor), Alexander Timchenko (tenor), Vladislav Sulimsky (baritone), Yevgeny Nikitin (bass baritone), Ilya Bannik (bass), Yuri Vorobiev (bass) and Mikhail Petrenko (bass). The role of Kundry on the first evening will be performed by Swedish mezzo-soprano Kristina Martling. Valery Gergiev will be conducting.

The Mariinsky Theatre will continue its performances of works by Richard Wagner at the Ljubljana Summer Festival – one of Slovenia's most important cultural events. On 29 and 30 August the Cankarjev Dom Cultural Centre will host performances of the operas Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (production concept by Valery Gergiev and George Tsypin). The lead roles will be performed by Mikhail Vekua (Siegfried), Andrei Popov (Mime), Roman Burdenko (Alberich), Yekaterina Shimanovich (Brünnhilde), Yevgeny Nikitin (the Wanderer), Mikhail Petrenko (Fafner) and Zlata Bulycheva (Erda) on 29 August, and by Dmitry Voropaev (Siegfried), Larisa Gogolevskaya (Brünnhilde), Roman Burdenko (Alberich), Olga Savova (Waltraute), Yekaterina Shimanovich (Gutrune), Yevgeny Nikitin (Gunther), Mikhail Petrenko (Hagen), Zhanna Dombrovskaya (Woglinde), Irina Vasilieva (Wellgunde) and Yekaterina Sergeyeva (Flosshilde) on 30 August.

On 31 August a concert by the Mariinsky Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev will bring the LXV Ljubljana Summer Festival to a close. The programme includes Ludwig van Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, Dmitry Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and Sergei Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto. The soloist is Behzod Abduraimov.

On 1 and 2 September Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra will present two monograph marathons at the famous Lucerne Festival (Switzerland). The first evening will be dedicated to Modest Musorgsky. The programme includes the introduction from the opera Khovanshchina, the symphonic fantasia Night on Bald Mountain, the song cycle Songs and Dances of Death (with soloist Oxana Volkova) and Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestration by Maurice Ravel). On 2 September at the KKL Luzern Concert and Convention Centre there will be performances of all of Sergei Prokofiev's piano concerti by the brilliant young pianists Daniil Trifonov, Behzod Abduraimov and Sergei Redkin.

On 3 September the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev will perform a concert at the renowned British festival the BBC Proms. The programme of the sixty-eighth promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London will feature Dmitry Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, Sergei Prokofiev's Cantata for the 20^th Anniversary of the October Revolution and Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Third Piano Concerto, the solo to be performed by Denis Matsuev.

To conclude the tour, on 8 September the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev will appear at the opening of the Beethovenfest in Bonn (Germany). The programme includes Ludwig van Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, the introduction to Act I of Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Schéhérazade.