June 17, 2024 marks the 142nd anniversary of the birth of Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky. To commemorate the occasion, Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre will present special programs as part of the ambitious Music Festival Genius of the Place. The central event of the celebration will be a performance in the composer’s homeland, Oranienbaum, where the principal dancers of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre Sergei Umanetc and Anna Samostrelova will participate.
On June 16, 2024, a special program in honor of Stravinsky’s birthday will be presented in the Southern Courtyard of the Grand Menshikov Palace in Oranienbaum Park in the Peterhof Museum-Reserve. The performance will start at 3:00 pm, and will feature a public gala concert of ballet soloists and the Mariinsky Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev. The ballet program of the gala concert will include duets of Firebird and Ivan, Princess and Ivan from The Firebird ballet, performed by the soloists of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal dancers Anna Samostrelova and Sergei Umanetc.
It should be noted that in the 2023/24 season, the Primorsky Stage’s production of The Firebird was first performed in Vladikavkaz on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre Branch; the ballet also travelled to Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Genius of the Place is a festival that brings together musical offerings in the homelands of great Russian composers. This season it started on March 22, 2024 in Tikhvin. In total, the program included five places: Tikhvin, where Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was born; Pskov, which gave the world Modest Petrovich Musorgsky; Smolensk, the birthplace of Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka; Votkinsk, the hometown of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The final destination of the Festival will be Oranienbaum, Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky’s hometown.
The event is supported by the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Culture ROSCONCERT.
