This year, the IX International Mariinsky Far East Festival was held on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre in a new format. The opera program was presented from October 29, 2024 to November 3, 2024, and the ballet program, from November 14 to 17, 2024.
As part of the ballet program, the audience enjoyed the recent Mariinsky premieres for the first time. On November 14 and 15, 2024, the ballet part of the Festival opened with Anyuta set to music by Valery Gavrilin. The landscape of a small provincial town, the glitter of high society, and the mental anguish of Chekhov’s heroes were embodied choreographically by Vladimir Vasiliev, People’s Artist of the USSR.
On November 16 and 17, 2024, the Primorsky Stage hosted performances of Leo Delibes’ comic ballet Coppélia. This colorful production choreographed by Alexander Sergeev had appeared on the Mariinsky Theatre playbill at the end of the last season. The performance combines classical and neoclassical choreography, pantomime and complex variations. The dancing creations of the puppeteer Coppélius – kittens, marionettes and even a teddy bear come as the highlight of the production.
The ballet program of the Festival was presented by the stars of the Mariinsky Theatre: prima ballerinas Renata Shakirova and Nadezhda Batoeva, principal dancer Kimin Kim, soloists Konstantin Zverev, Maxim Izmestiev, Alexandra Khiteyeva, Nikita Korneyev, May Nagahisa, Maxim Zyuzin, Roman Belyakov, Yaroslav Baibordin, Vlada Borodulina, Philipp Stepin. Those days, the conductor’s stand of the Mariinsky Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage was occupied by the Mariinsky Theatre conductor Arseny Shuplyakov.
It is worth pointing out that on the previous days, from October 29, 2024 to November 3, 2024, opera masterpieces from the IX International Mariinsky Far East Festival program were presented on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. Several operas from the Primorsky Stage repertoire were performed, including The Enchanted Wanderer by Rodion Shchedrin and Tosca by Giacomo Puccini. The high-profile premieres from St. Petersburg, such as the epic opera drama Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi and the comic opera La Cenerentola by Gioachino Rossini, were in the focus of the public’s attention. The performance of Giacomo Puccini’s famous Turandot, dedicated to the 86th anniversary of Primorsky Region, came as an extra event for the audience.
The leading parts were performed by the Mariinsky Theatre opera soloists Tatiana Serjan, Sergei Skorokhodov, Vyacheslav Vasilyev, Yakov Strizhak, Olga Maslova, Zinaida Tsarenko, Tsvetana Omeltchuk, Isabella Andriasyan, Anna Knyazeva, Denis Zakirov, Vladimir Feliauer, Sergei Romanov, Denis Begansky, Svetlana Karpova, Klim Tikhonov, Miroslav Molchanov, Viktor Korotich, and by the soloists of the Primorsky Stage Yevgeny Plekhanov, Ilya Astafurov, Tatiana Makarchuk, Liliya Kadnikova, Alexei Repin, Vsevolod Marilov.
In total, this year’s Festival program attracted more than 15,000 spectators.
