On the 29th of July an exhibition entitled “Art in its Purest Form”, celebrating 100 years since the Russian ballet’s first tour to Japan, will open on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. The exhibition will be opened by Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Theatre Valery Gergiev.
From the end of 1915 the Governments of Japan and Russia were actively involved in negotiations to establish bilateral contacts and search for economic and cultural ties between the two countries. One of the most important aspects of this collaboration was the tour of Tokyo by the ballet company of the Mariinsky Theatre that took place in 1916. At the height of the 1st World War, by invitation of the Japanese Ambassador to St Petersburg Viscount Motono Ichirō, a performance of a small group of Russian artists in the Imperial Theatre of Tokyo took the Japanese public by storm. In just a few days (from the 16th to 18th of June) the public became acquainted with the famous classical ballets Swan Lake, La Bayadère, and The Little Humpbacked Horse, parts of which were performed by soloists of the Imperial (Mariinsky) Theatre Yelena Smirnova, Olga Oblakova and Boris Romanov. It was during this tour that the music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky was heard for the first time in Japan. The “Art in its Purest Form” exhibition presents documents and photograph from historical foundations of the Mariinsky Theatre and Russian archives and museums.
On this day, the 29th of July, Laureates of the I International Grand Piano Competition will make their debuts on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre: Winner of the Grand Prix 14-year-old Alexander Malofeev (Russia), 12-year-old Shio Okui (Japan), and 12-year-old Tinghong Liao (China). 20-year-old Japanese student of Moscow Conservatory, Kanon Matsuda will also perform in this concert. The young talents will be accompanied by the Mariinsky Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev.
The exhibition comes to Vladivostok from St Petersburg, from the historic stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, where it opened on the 15th of June and runs till the middle of July.
