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Mariinsky Theater Orchestra to perform in four European countries

The orchestra will give 12 concerts in Austria, Germany, Spain and Italy from February 5 to February 17

ST. PETERSBURG, February 4. /TASS/. The Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater led by People’s Artist of Russia Valery Gergiev is beginning a European tour of Austria, Germany, Spain and Italy on Sunday, the theater’s press officer Anna Kasatkina informed TASS.

"The orchestra will give 12 concerts in Austria, Germany, Spain and Italy from February 5 to February 17," she said, adding that Austria’s Linz will be the first city it will perform in. The concert program will include Claude Debussy’s the Afternoon of a Faun, Olivier Messiaen’s Four Symphonic Meditations for Orchestra and Dmitry Shostakovich’s Symphony No.4.

"In the run-up to the tour, the symphony orchestra, choir, soloists of the Mariinsky Opera Company along with invited performers will present Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Simon Boccanegra at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall," Kasatkina added.

The German part of the tour will begin on February 6 with symphonic evenings in Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Freiburg. Taking part in them will be pianist Denis Matsuev (Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No.3). In Hamburg, St. Petersburg’s sister city, the orchestra will perform Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta opera. The Mariinsky Theater Orchestra will be joined by the choir soloists there. On February 11, the musicians will give a concert in Alte Oper in Frankfurt where pianist Alexey Volodin will perform with the orchestra Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto No.3.

On February 12-16, the Symphony Orchesta will make stops in five Spanish cities. This part of the tour will open with a concert in the Baluarte Palace of Congresses (Pamplona) where it will perform Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.5 and Sergei Prokofiev’s Cantata Alexander Nevsky with the participation of Orfeon Pamplones choir. In Madrid’s National Auditorium of Music and in Barcelona’s Auditorium concert hall, the orchestra will perform Mahler’s Symphony No.2 with the participation of Mariinsky Theater soloists Anastasia Kalagina and Yulia Matochkina and Ibercamera Choir. The Mariinsky Theater Orchestra will join forces with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra to perform Shostakovich’s Symphony No.7 in Valencia’s Palace of Music.

A series of concerts in Spain will end in Alicante where Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition will be performed. Winner of the 15th International Tchaikovsky Competition Sergei Redkin will perform with the orchestra Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.3. Another pianist, Varvara Nepomnyashchaya, will join the orchestra in Turin, Italy, where Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No.2 will be performed on February 17. The Russian program on the final evening of the tour will be complemented by the Suite from the Tale of Tsar Saltan by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Magic Lake by Anatoly Liadov.