The III International Mariinsky Far East Festival, Vladivostok, is to be opened on July 24, 2018 on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. The Festival will last till August 8, 2018 and include Far East premieres of the Mariinsky Theatre’s performances, events on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Marius Petipa’s birth and performances of outstanding instrumentalists, famous conductors and opera and ballet stars.
On July 24, 2018 at 18:00, on the threshold of the opening, the Russian Pacific Fleet Orchestra under the baton of Ilia Sergeev gives a traditional public concert on the Summer Stage.
On July 24, 2018 at 19:00 the Festival is to be opened on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre with the Far East premiere of Don Quixote classic ballet by Ludwig Minkus that was staged by Alexander Gorsky after original choreography by Marius Petipa. The ballet stars dancers of the Mariinsky Ballet. On July 24, 2018 Kimin Kim dances the part of Basilio; Renata Shakirova appears as Kitri, Ekaterina Kondaurova as The Street Dancer, and Konstantin Zverev as Espada. On July 25, 2018 Timur Askerov performs the part of Basilio; Nadezhda Batoeva appears as Kitri, Kristina Shapran as The Street Dancer, and Roman Belyakov as Espada.
On July 26 and 27, 2018 The Four Seasons ballet staged by Ilia Jivoy and scored by Max Richter after the group of four violin concerti by Antonio Vivaldi will be first performed. The one-act ballet SeasonS was successfully staged as a scratch version of The Four Seasons at the I International Mariinsky Far East Festival in 2016. Now, two years later, the audience will see the choreographer’s full ballet featuring Ekaterina Kondaurova and Roman Belyakov on July 26, 2018 or Kristina Shapran and Konstantin Zverev on July 27, 2018.
The ballet program of the Festival will end up with the premiere of Cinderella ballet composed by Sergei Prokofiev, choreographed by Aleksey Ratmansky. The first performances will be shown once on July 28, 2018 and twice on July 29, 2018 at 14:00 and 19:00. The first big ballet choreographed by Aleksey Ratmansky was specially created for the Mariinsky Theatre in 2001 and has been attracting inhabitants of Saint Petersburg by its ironical interpretation of Sergei Prokofiev’s score. The ballet will be first performed in Vladivostok by principal dancers of the Mariinsky Theatre. On July 28, 2018 Kimin Kim will dance the part of The Prince, Renata Shakirova will appear as Cinderella and Ekaterina Kondaurova as The Step-mother; on July 29, 2018 at 14:00 Konstantin Zverev will perform the part of The Prince, Kristina Shapran will appear as Cinderella and Tatiana Tkachenko as The Step-mother; on July 29, 2018 at 19:00 Vladimir Shklyarov will dance the part of The Prince, Nadezhda Batoeva will appear as Cinderella and Ekaterina Kondaurova as The Step-mother. All the performances will be accompanied by the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra.
On July 27, 2018 the concert program of the III International Mariinsky Far East Festival, Vladivostok, will be opened by the Chamber Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre and Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici who is a violinist, a conductor, the Principal Concert-Master of the Munich Philharmonic, the head of the Munich Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, and the leader of the Stradivarius Ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre. The Chamber Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre under the baton of Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici will play the Symphony No. 40 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi.
On July 25, 2018 Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici will give a free master class in the Chamber Hall of the Primorsky Stage.
Among the bright concert programs of the Festival there are performances of Miura Fumiaki, Japan and Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici, Germany together with the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra directed by Shizuo Z Kuwahara, Japan. Miura Fumiaki is the youngest ever winner of the Joseph Joachim Hannover International Violin Competition. He performs on the Antonio Stradivarius 1704 violin “Viotti”. On July 30, 2018 in the Great Hall of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre they will play the concert overture for Shakespeare’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Violin Concerto by Felix Mendelssohn, as well as Scheherazade symphonic suite by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
The Festival bill is also ornamented by the performance of the famous pianist Yeol Eum Son, South Korea and the Symphony Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage conducted by Justus Frantz, Germany on August 7, 2018. Yeol Eum Son is a prizewinner at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition. She was a success at the I International Mariinsky Far East Festival in 2016. During this visit to Vladivostok she together with Justus Frantz will perform the Piano Concerto No. 20 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. On the same day Requiem by Mozart will be sung by Evelina Agabalaeva, a soloist of the Mariinsky Academy of Young Opera Singers, and other fellows of the Atkins Young Artists Program.
On August 3 and 5, 2018 Alexandra Dovgan aged eleven, a Grand Prix winner at the II International Grand Piano Competition, will first appear on the Vladivostok stage. She had success at the XXVI Stars of the White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg. On August 3, 2018 on the Primorsky Stage the young pianist will play Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and concert overture The Hebrides, and perform Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz. She will be accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre under the baton of Anton Shaburov.
On August 5, 2018 Alexandra Dovgan will give a solo concert in the Chamber Hall. She will play compositions of François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Sergei Prokofiev, Johann Sebastian Bach, Marc-André Hamelin, Frédéric Chopin, Moritz Moszkowski, and Sergei Bortkiewicz.
Among the Festival concert programs there are traditional guest performances. On July 29, 2018 the Chamber Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage of Mariinsky Theatre will play works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Vivaldi at the Ussuriysk Theatre of the Russian Army. The well-known bass-baritone Shenyang (China), a winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, will give his recital at the Primorsky Philharmonic Hall on August 3, 2018. On August 5, 2018 at the Russian Children’s Center “Ocean” the concert will be given by fellows of the Atkins Young Artists Program. The young signers will perform arias and duets from operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gaetano Donizetti and popular songs and romances.
The Festival opera bill includes the Far East premieres of Don Quichotte opera by Jules Massenet, staged by Yannis Kokkos (July 31, 2018 and August 6, 2018) and Tristan and Isolde opera by Richard Wagner, staged by Dmitry Chernyakov (August 5, 2018) with Valery Gergiev serving as a conductor. The leading parts are to be sung by principal soloists of the Mariinsky Opera Company such as Yulia Matochkina, Mikhail Vekua, Evgeny Nikitin, Yuri Vorobiev, Mikhail Petrenko, and Angrey Serov.
The first act of Thus Do They All, or The School for Lovers opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be performed as a concert by fellows of the Atkins Young Artists Program for the first time on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre on August 1, 2018. The concert performance of Salome, a one-act musical drama by Richard Strauss, will star Elena Stikhina, a soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre and the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. It was the part of Salome which she brightly sang in the first performance in Saint Petersburg in 2017. On August 4, 2018 at 20:00 the part of Jochanaan will be sung by Evgeny Nikitin; the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra will be under the baton of Valery Gergiev.
On the same day the concert version of Iolanta opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky will be conducted by the maestro Valery Gergiev and sung by brilliant singers such as Irina Churilova, Nazhmiddin Mavlyanov, Aleksey Markov, Mikhail Petrenko, and Roman Burdenko (August 4, 2018 at 16:00).
Among the Primorsky Stage performances you may see at the Festival with leading soloists involved there are Carmen opera by Georges Bizet, staged by Daria Panteleeva (August 2, 2018) and The Queen of Spades opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, staged by Yuri Temirkanov (August 8, 2018). The operas will star Elena Stikhina, Irina Churilova, Larisa Dyadkova, Yulia Matochkina, Nazhmiddin Mavlyanov, Roman Burdenko, and Aleksey Markov and be conducted by Christian Knapp (August 2, 2018) and Pavel Smelkov (August 8, 2018).
On August 8, 2018 the Festival will end.
