On August 1, 2025, the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre will open the season 2025/26. A playbill full of outstanding events is awaiting the audience: a ballet premiere, a large-scale symphony program, Italian opera masterpieces and timeless classics in a benchmark performance.
Opera
The new season will be opened in grand style by the Opera Company of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre.
The opening performance of August will be Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta (August 1, 2025), a lyrical and life-affirming story of love and insight, directed by Anna Shishkina, with set and costume design by Pyotr Okunev. The opera series will continue with Georges Bizet’s Carmen (August 2, 2025) and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tale of Tsar Saltan (August 3, 2025).
Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il trovatore, directed by Vyacheslav Starodubtsev, with set design by Pyotr Okunev, which premiered in the 2024/25 season, will continue in the new season, on August 8 and 10, 2025. Italian sounding will proceed with Gaetano Donizetti’s musical comedy Don Pasquale on August 14, 2025. In the first months of the season, the audiences will also enjoy grand productions of the operas The Tsar’s Bride (August 22, 2025), The Love for Three Oranges (August 24, 2025), Madama Butterfly (August 29 and 30, 2025), Aida (September 7, 2025), Eugene Onegin (September 10, 2025), Turandot (October 16 and 18, 2025) and other exciting performances.
Ballet
The Ballet Company of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre will open the season with traditional performances in Saint Petersburg. From July 29 to August 8, 2025, the audience of “the Northern Capital of Russia” will enjoy the ballets The Nutcracker by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Giselle and Le Corsaire by Adolphe Adam, and A Thousand and One Nights by Fikret Amirov.
On the Primorsky Stage, in August and September, the ballet dancers will present the ballets that premiered in the 2024/25 season: Les Noces and Petrouchka (August 23, 2025), the company’s star performance A Thousand and One Nights (September 5 and 6, 2025 at 14:00 and 19:00), and traditional classics such as Don Quixote (August 21, 2025), The Sleeping Beauty (August 27 and 28, 2025), Swan Lake (September 18, 2025), Raymonda (September 11 and 13, 2025) and neoclassical original productions Phaedra and The Firebird (August 31, 2025).
However, the highlight of the first months of the 2025/26 season will be the premiere performances of La fille mal gardée ballet to the music by Louis Hérold, staged by People’s Artist of the USSR, legendary ballet director Oleg Vinogradov. The famous choreographer is working with the Ballet Company of the Primorsky Stage on one of the most joyful and popular ballets in the world. The premiere performances will take place on October 3 and 4, 2025 (at 14:00 and 19:00).
Symphony Concerts
The first large-scale concert of the season performed by the Mariinsky Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage under the conduction of Pavel Smelkov will take place on August 9, 2025. The programme for the night, “The Classical Symphony”, will include pieces by Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitry Shostakovich, and Igor Stravinsky.
On September 4, 2025, a special musical programme will be presented by the outstanding pianist Denis Matsuev and the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, who traditionally perform in Vladivostok at the beginning of the theatre season.
