According to the experts, today Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet and Opera Theatre - Opera and Concert Hall has the best concert acoustic in the world

The Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall is a natural blend of history and the present day. It possesses marvellous acoustics…

Il Giornale

An acoustic sensation!

Dagens Nyheter

The acoustics ensure a cantilena quality of sound and a clarity of the woodwind section which does not fade away, rather it dissolves into a space offering a perfect view from any vantage point (…) magnificent, full of light and warmth.

Le Figaro

French architect Xavier Fabre has done a wonderful job of combining the old and the new. The acoustics were created by the renowned Yasuhisa Toyota, most famous for his concert hall in Los Angeles (…) Toyota has dealt with the task brilliantly: the balance of sound is staggering!

The New York Times

The Concert Hall comes to life from the light movement of sound waves that are reflected from floor to ceiling. It seems that the hall itself has become an instrument – a Stradivarius violin.

Süddeutsche Zeitung

29 November 2006 saw the grand opening of the new Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall in the presence of President Vladimir Putin, Minister for Economic Development Gherman Gref, Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin, Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov and Governor of St Petersburg Valentina Matvienko.

The opening of the Concert Hall proved yet another illustrious date in the history of Russian theatre. It is the only theatre and concert venue of its kind in Russia, designed according to the very latest developments in construction and purpose-built to host concerts.

The building of the new Concert Hall has historic ties to the Mariinsky Theatre. In 1900, the site was occupied by the Set Workshops and Exhibition Pavilion of the Board of Imperial Theatres which were passed to the Mariinsky Theatre in 1979. For over one hundred years amazing sets for numerous productions, many of which remain in the theatre‘s repertoire today, have been created in this Set Hall. The Set Workshops is linked with such illustrious theatre designers as Alexander Golovin, Konstantin Korovin, Alexandre Benois, Ivan Bilibin, Fyodor Fyodorovsky and Simon Virsaladze.

The Mariinsky Theatre and the new Concert Hall are linked by the name of Viktor Schrцter – principal architect of the Board of Imperial Theatres. He designed the building of the Set Workshops and, some ten years previously, he supervised the reconstruction of the Mariinsky Theatre. Schrцter was a true theatre architect. His creations include the opera house in Kiev and theatres in Nizhny-Novgorod, Rybinsk, Irkutsk and Tbilisi. He was a master of the rational movement in late 19th century Russian architecture and founder of the so-called "brick style".

In terms of importance, the Set Workshops are of great historic, artistic and cultural value. It is listed in the Register of Objects of Cultural Heritage as an architectural monument.

There was a fire in the building of the Set Workshops in September 2003, destroying almost all the costumes and sets stored there and damaging the site so badly that it seemed it was lost forever. However, maestro Gergiev took the decision to build the new Concert Hall on the site of the workshops, retaining Schrцter‘s beautiful faзade. The old faзade has now been lovingly restored, preserving all the decorative elements down to the historic inscriptions. The opposite side of the building, which faces onto Decembristsґ Street, has a new faзade that is a unique embodiment of 21st century architecture. Xavier Fabre who designed the new Concert Hall believes that the innovative architecture will prove an organic blend of "this century and the past one".

The Concert Hall has been built with all the latest innovations. The building houses a unique hall with wooden acoustic panels and all the necessary engineering systems. In terms of technology and acoustics, the name of Yasuhisa Toyota should guarantee that the new Concert Hall will rank alongside the world‘s finest concert venues, such as the concert halls in Lucerne, Sapporo and Birmingham, Berlin‘s Philharmonie, Leipzig‘s Gewandhaus and the Disney Hall in Los Angeles. In the new hall, the stage can be transformed for the desired effect according to the programme for the evening. By being able to control separate sections of the stage, it will be possible to vary the positions of orchestral groups or form an orchestra pit. The hall can also be used for semi-staged productions of operas and ballets.

The new hall has 1100 seats. It will host symphony concerts by the Mariinsky Theatre as well as by guest orchestras.

The new Concert Hall would not be possible today without the support of many individuals and companies who believed in this project and committed themselves to making it a reality.

Mariinsky (Kirov) Opera

Empress Catherine II issued an imperial edict that "Russian Theatre should be not merely for comedies and tragedies, but also for operas". This decree of 12th June 1783 to the Russian company performing in the specially built Bolshoi (Stone) Theatre envisaged the "production of one or two serious operas and two new comic operas per year". This date is considered the starting point in the history of the Mariinsky Opera Company.
Italian opera held sway over St Petersburg’s Bolshoi Theatre, which opened on 24th September 1783 with Paisiello’s opera Il mondo della luna. Alongside those by foreign composers, Russian works gradually began to appear on the Petersburg stage, including Orpheus and The Coachmen at the Travellers’ Inn by Yevstigney Fomin, The Miller, the Wizard, the Liar and the Matchmaker by Mikhail Sokolovsky and The Carriage Accident by Vasily Pashkevich. These first frays into the world of opera played a great historic role, as this is where elements of the Russian musical and dramatic style were first heard, later to be developed in the works of the great opera composers of the 19th century. Russian opera singers such as Yelizaveta Sandunova, Anton Krutitsky, Vasily Samoylov and Pyotr Zlov dazzled alongside foreign soloists on the Petersburg stage. The emergence of the Russian school is linked to these names. Mikhail Glinka’s opera A Life for the Tsar was premiered at St Petersburg’s Bolshoi Theatre on 27th November 1836; precisely six years later, on 27th November 1842, Glinka’s second opera Ruslan and Lyudmila was performed here for the first time. The first in a series of great Russian operas combining true art with genuine accessibility, they marked the birth of classical Russian opera. It was not by mere chance that A Life for the Tsar opened the Mariinsky Theatre on 2nd October 1860.
Edward Napravnik, who dedicated over half a century to the Mariinsky Theatre (1863-1916), played an immense role in developing Russian operatic theatre, training singers and establishing a brilliant orchestra. Napravnik built up a great company that could perform complicated concert programmes in addition to operas and ballets.

The operas The Stone Guest by Dargomyzhsky (1872), Judith (1863), Rogneda (1865) and Satan (1871) by Serov, most of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas, Boris Godunov (1874) and Khovanshchina (1886) by Musorgsky, Prince Igor (1890) by Borodin, The Demon by Rubenstein, all of Tchaikovsky’s operas (Charodeika being conducted by the composer himself) and other magnificent Russian operatic works were all premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre.
The theatre’s repertoire also included the best operas by western European composers. Giuseppe Verdi wrote La forza del destino especially for the Mariinsky Theatre in 1862, where it was premiered in the presence of the composer.

The history of Richard Wagner’s operas in Russia is closely linked above all with the Mariinsky Theatre, where Wagner first became known to Russians not only as a composer but also as a conductor. In the 1860’s and 1870’s, the Mariinsky Opera Company introduced the public to the composer’s early reformative works and, at the turn of the century, staged Wagner’s grandiose tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen in full.
A great opera company emerged at the Mariinsky Theatre. The talents of Osip Petrov, who first sang the roles of Susanin, Ruslan, Farlaf, the Miller and Ivan the Terrible helped Russian operatic art to blossom. He performed on stage for almost half a century alongside Anna Vorobyova-Petrova, Maria Stepanova and Lev Leonov. These singers were succeeded by a younger generation of singers including Yulia Platonova, Mikhail Sariotti, Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, Ivan Melnikov, Fyodor Stravinsky, Yevgeny Mravin, Maria Slavina and Nikolai and Medea Figner. At the turn of the century, the Russian operatic stage was illuminated by the talents of the great Fyodor Chaliapin, who constantly aimed to embody artistic truth and portray strong human emotions on the stage.

At the start of the 20th century, operas at the Mariinsky Theatre were marked by innovative attempts to stage "unified" productions that combined music, drama, painting and choreography. Artists Alexander Golovin, Konstantin Korovin, Alexander Benois and Valentin Serov, choreographer Mikhail Fokine and director Vsevolod Meierhold collaborated on operatic productions. During his period as director of the Mariinsky Theatre (1909-1918), Meierhold staged several productions including Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (1909), Gluck’s Orphйe et Eurydice (1911), Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov (1911), Strauss’ Elektra (1913), Dargomyzhsky’s The Stone Guest (1917), Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden (1917) and Stravinsky’s The Nightingale (1918). Meierhold’s operatic reforms brought the art closer to contemporary theatrical trends, seeking out new stylistic techniques connected with conventional theatre aesthetics and stylisation. In the first years after the Revolution, the foremost Russian performers continued to sing at the theatre. An entire galaxy of operatic stars including Chaliapin, Yershov, Piotrovsky, Andreyev, Bosse, Kastorsky and Kobzareva performed on the stage. Soon a new generation of artists appeared; such singers as Maksakova, Reisen, Slivinsky, Migay, Derzhinskaya, Pechovsky and Gorskaya provided a firm foundation for the Opera Company in years to come.

Conducting was at an unusually high level; operas were conducted by Kouts, Malko, Fitelberg, Pokhitonov, Kuper, Dranishnikov and Gauk.
Amongst new operas performed at the Mariinsky Theatre at this time, Prokofiev’s satirical comic opera Love for Three Oranges (1926), Berg’s expressionistic Wozzeck (1927) and Strauss’ Salome (1924) and Der Rosenkavalier (1928) were especially interesting. The years leading up to the Second World War saw the production of Gцtterdдmmerung in 1931, Das Rheingold in 1933 and Lohengrin in 1941.
During the war years, part of the company remained in besieged Leningrad and performed concerts and operas for city residents. The rest of the company was evacuated to Perm, where it not only performed operas from the repertoire of past years, but also staged several new productions.
After the war, the theatre staged many important productions, bringing fame to a new generation of singers, musicians and directors. Prokofiev’s The Duenna (Betrothal in a Monastery), one of the most vivid comic operas, was among those to enjoy such success when it was staged in 1946. 1960 saw the premiere of Semyon Kotko (directed by Tovstonogov). Amongst the greatest singers then at the theatre were Preobrazhenskaya, Serval, Kashevarova, Velter, Mshanskaya, Barinova, Krivulia and Laptev.

Of western European operas, the revival of Wagner’s Lohengrin (1962) and Verdi’s La forza del destino (1963) deserve special attention. Later came Benjamin Britten’s contemporary opera Peter Grimes (1965) and Hungarian composer Ferenc Erkel’s Lбslу Hunyadi (1965). 1966 saw the production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, an opera rarely staged in Russia. Productions of these years helped discover the unique talents and great gifts of singers such as Irina Bogacheva, Galina Kovaleva, Lyudmila Filatova, Boris Shtokolov and Vladimir Atlantov.

Yuri Temirkanov was the theatre’s Principal Conductor from 1976 to 1988. Starting with contemporary operatic music (Prokofiev’s War and Peace (1977) and Rodion Shedrin’s Dead Souls, staged by Boris Pokrovsky (1978)), he turned his attentions to Russian classics not merely as a conductor but also as a stage director, writing his own scene plans for Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades. During this period, such great singers as Yevgeniya Gorokhovskaya, Lyubov Kazarnovskaya, Larisa Shevchenko, Konstantin Pluzhnikov, Nikolai Okhotnikov, Sergei Leiferkus, Alexei Steblyanko and Yuri Marusin occupied the forefront of the operatic stage.

Valery Gergiev’s appointment as Principal Conductor and later Artistic Director at the end of the 1980’s heralded a new era for the Opera Company. The first years of his leadership were devoted to reforms not only to repertoire policy, but most importantly to the development of a new working style in a new, faster artistic tempo. On Gergiev’s initiative, the theatre held "monographic" festivals dedicated to Musorgsky, Prokofiev and Rimsky-Korsakov, the greatest Russian composers. At the Musorgsky festival in 1989, all the composer’s operas were performed - Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, a concert performance of The Sorochinsky Fair, The Marriage and highlights of Salammbo as originally orchestrated by the composer. The festival dedicated to the 100th anniversary since the birth of Prokofiev presented audiences with four of his operas - The Fiery Angel, War and Peace, Love for Three Oranges and The Gambler. The Fiery Angel, one of the festival premieres, staged by British director David Freeman, was named best production of 1992 in Japan. Prokofiev’s operas were not staged at the Mariinsky Theatre for a lengthy period, and the theatre paid tribute and respect to the most important Russian opera composer of the 20th century with this festival and further productions of Betrothal in a Monastery (1996), Semyon Kotko (1999) and War and Peace (2000). The Rimsky-Korsakov in the 20th Century festival staged the composer’s monumental operatic works - The Maid of Pskov, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maid Fevroniathe epic opera Sadko, Autumn Song, Kashchei the Immortal and a concert performance of The Tsar’s Bride.

The tradition of Promenade concerts accessible to all was restored in the 1991-92 season, their rich and varied programmes intending to draw the widest possible audience. The theatre’s symphonic concerts are now firmly established. The Mariinsky Opera Company and Symphony Orchestra perform at international festivals including those in Baden-Baden, Salzburg, Rotterdam, Rome and Mikkeli.

Since 1993, Valery Gergiev has been the organiser and artistic director of the annual International Stars of the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg. One of the main characteristics of this festival is its tradition to stage all the premieres of the current season. Over the years, festival premieres have included Verdi’s Aida and Strauss’ Salome (1995), Tchaikovsky’s Mazepa, Bizet’s Carmen and Prokofiev’s The Gambler (1996) and two versions of Shostakovich’s opera - Katerina Izmailova (1995) and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1996). In 1997, there was Wagner’s Parsifal, heralding the start of the current Wagnerian period at the Mariinsky Theatre, and Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov in the composer’s original orchestration. In 1998, the festival presented another of Wagner’s operas, Der Fliegende Hollander, and, in 1999, Lohengrin, the opera through which St Petersburg first became acquainted with Wagner‘s works more than a century ago. As a salute to the imperial traditions of the theatre, Verdi’s La forza del destino was restored with its original sets, costumes and mise-en-scenes, thereby permitting the Petersburg public to see the opera as performed during Verdi’s lifetime.

The 1999 festival saw the premiere of Prokofiev’s opera Semyon Kotko which received four Golden Masks, Russia’s highest theatrical prize. The highlight of the next festival proved to be the Mariinsky Theatre-Metropolitan Opera co-production of Prokofiev’s epic opera War and Peace, based on Tolstoy’s novel. It is noteworthy that, at the turn of this century as it did at the last, the theatre once more planned a grand production of Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. In 2000, the opera Das Rheingold was staged, followed by Die Walkure in 2001. That year was especially rich in premieres including Verdi’s operas Macbeth, Un ballo in maschera and Otello. As part of the 2001 festival, there were performances of Araya’ s Tsefal i Prokris and Cimarosi’s Cleopatra, opening a new series of Treasures of the Mariinsky Theatre.

The Mariinsky Theatre was the first in Russia to start working with the world’s great opera houses - Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, the Opйra Bastille, La Scala, La Fenice, Tel Aviv Opera and San Francisco Opera. Operas by non-Russian composers began to be performed in the original language, which had the additional advantage of helping the Mariinsky Opera Company adopt world opera trends.

The success of the Opera Company is ensured by its highly talented singers who are able to enrich any production, either classical or contemporary. It is no mere chance that Mariinsky Opera singers perform on the stages of the world’s leading opera houses, demonstrating the high level of the Russian operatic school. Alongside respected singers such as Bogacheva, Borodina, Gorokhovskaya, Dyadkova, Gorchakova, Shevchenko, Novikova, Galuzin, Gergalov, Marusin, Pluzhnikov, Putilin, Vaneyev and Okhotnikov, there is a now a new generation of young talented performers including Anna Netrebko, Irina Dzhoieva, Yevgeny Nikitin, Olga Trifonova, Vasily Gerello, Ildar Abdrazakov, Daniil Shtoda and Irina Mataeva.

Mariinsky (Kirov) Opera schedule

Mariinsky (Kirov) Opera performances:

Symphony Marathon begins in London to Mark 100 Years of Shostakovich

The orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre enjoys a long and distinguished history as one of the oldest musical institutions in Russia. Founded in the 18th century during the reign of Peter the Great, it was known before the revolution as the Russian Imperial Opera Orchestra. Housed in St. Petersburg‘s famed Mariinsky Theatre (named after Maria, the wife of Czar Alexander II) since 1860, the Orchestra entered its true "golden age" during the second half of the 19th century under the music direction of Eduard Napravnik (1839-1916). Napravnik single-handedly ruled the Imperial Theatre for more than half a century (from 1863-1916) and under his leadership, the Mariinsky Orchestra was recognized as one of the finest in Europe. He also trained a generation of outstanding conductors, developing what came to be known as "the Russian school of conducting."

The Mariinsky Theatre was also the birthplace of numerous operas and ballets which are meanwhile regarded as masterpieces of the 19th and 20th century. World premiere performances include Glinka‘s Life of a Tsar and Ruslan and Liudmila, Borodin‘s Prince Igor, Musorgsky‘s Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Rimsky-Korsakov‘s Maid of Pskov, The Snow Maiden and Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, Tchaikovsky‘s The Queen of Spades, Iolanta, Swan Lake, Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, Prokofiev‘s The Duenna, as well as operas by Shostakovich and ballets by Khachaturian.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was closely associated with the Mariinsky Theatre, not only conducting the orchestra but also premiering his Fifth Symphony there, as well as the fantasy overture Hamlet and the Sixth Symphony. Sergey Rakhmaninov conducted the Orchestra on numerous occasions, including premieres of his Spring Cantata and the symphonic poem The Bells. The Orchestra also premiered the music of the young Igor Stravinsky, such as his Scherzo Fantastique and the suite from The Firebird ballet.

Throughout its history, the Mariinsky Theatre has presented works by Europe‘s leading opera composers. In 1862, Verdi‘s La Forza del Destino was given its world premiere at the theatre in the presence of the composer. Wagner was a favorite at the Mariinsky Theatre, where his operas were frequently performed from the 19th through the beginning of the 20th century, including the first Russian performances of the complete Ring cycle, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger and Parsifal. The Ring cycle was conducted by Hans Richter, who was the first to conduct the complete Ring in Bayreuth and at Covent Garden.
The Mariinsky Orchestra also gave the first Russian performances of Richard Strauss‘ Elektra, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier, and Berg‘s Wozzeck in a production that took place two years after its world premiere in Berlin and twenty years before its premiere in Vienna.
By 1917 the orchestra‘s name had changed to the Royal Imperial Theatre Orchestra, and was regarded as St. Petersburg‘s leading symphony orchestra. Its repertoire - operatic and orchestral - has traditionally included not only music of Russian composers, but also of European composers. Numerous internationally famous musicians conducted the Orchestra, among them Hans von Bulow, Felix Mottl, Felix Weingartner, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Otto Nikisch, Willem Mengelberg, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter and Erich Kleiber.

On two occasions, in 1847 and 1867, Hector Berlioz conducted performances of his own works, including The Damnation of Faust, Romeo and Juliet, Symphony Fantastique and Harold in Italy. Berlioz wrote in his memoirs "Such an orchestra! Such precision! Such an ensemble!". And in a letter dated December 1867, he stated: "I don‘t think Beethoven ever had a better performance of his compositions!" In March and April 1863, Richard Wagner visited St. Petersburg and led the Royal Imperial Theatre Orchestra in six programs of Beethoven Symphonies and his own compositions, including the world‘s first concert performance of Prelude und Liebestod. Gustav Mahler appeared with the Orchestra in both 1902 and 1907, conducting five concerts, including a performance of his Fifth Symphony. In 1912, Arnold Schoenberg conducted the premiere of his symphonic poem Pelleas and Melisande.

Renamed the Kirov Opera during the Soviet era, the orchestra continued to maintain its high artistic standards under the leadership of Evgeni Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov. In 1988, Valery Gergiev was elected artistic director of the opera company and in 1996 the Russian Government appointed him as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre. Soon after the city of Leningrad was renamed St. Petersburg, the Kirov Theatre reverted to its original title of the Mariinsky Theatre, home to the Kirov Opera, the Kirov Ballet, and the Kirov Orchestra.

Under the leadership of Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky Theatre has forged important relationships with the worlds‘ greatest opera houses, among them the Metropolitan Opera House, London‘s Royal Opera House, the San Francisco Opera, the Theatre Chatelet in Paris La Scala in Milan just to name a few. Besides extensive touring of the opera and the ballet company, the Kirov Orchestra has performed throughout world and has become one of the outstanding orchestras. The success of the orchestra‘s continual travelling has lead to the reputation of, what a journalist called, "the world‘s first global orchestra".
In 1998, the orchestra made its debut tour of China, an historic first, with a performance in the Great Hall in Beijing, broadcast to 50 million people, in the presence of President Jiang Zemin. It was the first time in 40 years that a Russian orchestra had been in China.
Under the baton of Valery Gergiev, the orchestra has recorded exclusively for Phillips Classics since 1989. Releases include the complete operas Khovanshchina, War and Peace, Sadko, Prince Igor, The Queen of Spades, Ruslan and Lyudmila, Iolanta, Fiery Angel (winner of the 1996 Gramophone "Opera of the Year‘ award), La forza del destino, Boris Godunov (1869 and 1872 version), Mazeppa, Betrothal in the Monastery, Love for Three Oranges and Semyen Kotko. In addition the orchestra recorded the complete ballets Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
In July 2000, the orchestra and chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre recorded Verdi‘s Requiem and other releases of orchestral music include Shostakovich‘s Symphony No 8, Rakhmaninov‘s Symphony No2, Stravinsky‘s Firebird¦and The Rite of Spring, Skriabin‘s Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus as well as the complete Piano Concerti by Prokofiev.

Gala Opening

Under the baton of Valery Gergiev, on November 29, 2006, the Mariinsky Concert Hall opened with a gala concert featuring pianist Lang Lang, violinists Maxim Vengerov, Vadim Repin, tenor Vladimir Galuzin, Olga Trifonova and the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre.

Including works by Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Massenet, Gulda and Verdi, "The two-hour program showed every dynamic, orchestration, color and mix of timbres possible. Successful acoustically and artistically; the building is very beautiful and warm," said WNFA Vice Chairman R. Douglas Sheldon.

The acoustical engineer was Japan‘s Yasuhisa Toyota of Nagata Acoustics, who has engineered some of the most acoustically esteemed concert spaces in the world, including Sapporo Concert Hall in Tokyo and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

At the end of the concert, Moscow‘s Mayor Luzhkov, Alexei Kudrin and German Greff spoke, and a representative of the Emperor of Japan presented Maestro Gergiev with the Golden Order of the Rising Sun, one of Japan‘s highest honors.

"The opening of this hall marks the beginning of a new era for Russia," Russia‘s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. "It shows that the country is getting stronger and in such grand-scale cultural projects, state support goes hand in hand with private sponsorship. I find it a most encouraging sign."

"The fundraising was quick, generous and an international effort," Gergiev said. It was his initiative to build a concert hall on the site of the historic Mariinsky scenery warehouse destroyed in the 2003 fire which left only three external walls standing. In March 2005, with the scenery shop relocated,

Gergiev began fundraising. By June 2005 an initial $5 million had been raised ($2 million was raised by the 2005 White Nights Ball) and building work was started. By June 2006, $20 million had been raised.

The warehouse was built at the turn of the century by V.A. Shreter, the architect of St. Petersburg‘s Philharmonic Hall, as well as of opera houses in Kiev, Tblisi and Nizhni Novgorod.

Gergiev, Toyota and architect Xavier Fabre worked together to create the state-of-the-art using the three historic walls of the scenery warehouse as a starting point, with the new glass and copper faзade of the hall rising above and extending beyond them. Glass busts of St. Petersburg‘s composers are displayed in the new hall, "They are the owners of the Hall," Gergiev said.

The Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall is to be a second home to the Kirov Orchestra and is arguably the first hall of its kind to be wholly owned by an Opera and Ballet theatre. Concerts and performances will complement and contrast with the program of the Mariinsky Theatre and an extensive schedule of educational activities is envisioned, with the emphasis on young people.

"The hall has risen from the ashes of our legendary past," Gergiev said. "The need for the revival of the burnt premises and the need for a new concert venue were great indeed, but Valery Gergiev‘s commendable burning enthusiasm for this Theatre made a much stronger impression," said Trade and Economic Development Minister German Gref. Aptly, the Finale of Stravinsky‘s Firebird closed the gala program.

Copyright © 1998-2006 The State Academic Mariinsky Theatre

Mariinsky Concert Hall plan

Number of seats: 1 100
Every row is higher that the previous, so you have a good view of the stage from all the seats. Acoustics is excellent is every section of the hall.
The only difference is the distance between you and the stage.
Orchestra and soloists face Parterre. Conductor faces Amphitheatre and Dress Circle.

Dress Code for Mariinsky Concert Hall

There is no strict dress code for the Mariinsky Concert Hall. Casual dress is accepted, for example you can wear jeans if you want. The only dress that are not allowed are shorts and T-shirts.

Mariinsky Concert Hall plans for 2012/2013 Season

The theatre’s new season will be a season of great expectations and changes. Late spring 2013 will see the opening of the Mariinsky Theatre’s new stage – contemporary, equipped with the last word in theatre technology, a building focussed on the audience and which is comfortable for performers and has unique acoustic features.

Ballet
The first ballet “mini” premiere will take place on 27 September at the Concert Hall: the evening programme of one-act ballets will feature the Russian premiere of the miniature Gentle Memories by Jiri Bubenicek, choreographer and principal dancer of the Dresden Ballet, created especially for Yekaterina Kondaurova. Islom Baimuradov, Alexander Sergeyev and Anton Pimonov will also be performing in the ballet.
Premieres of the Mariinsky ballet festival, which will run from 28 February until 10 March 2013, include Serge Lifar’s Suite en blanc and revivals of ballets by William Forsythe. The festival will open with Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet with choreography by Leonid Lavrovsky and Diana Vishneva as Juliet; Maestro Valery Gergiev will be conducting.
Alexei Ratmansky will be returning to the Mariinsky Theatre once again; the choreographer will be returning to St Petersburg to stage a ballet to music by Shostakovich.
German choreographer Sasha Waltz will be staging her original version of Le Sacre du printemps to music by Igor Stravinsky for the Mariinsky Ballet Company as part of a joint project between the Mariinsky Theatre and Paris’ Theatre des Champs Elysees. The project marks one hundred years since the premiere of Le Sacre du printemps with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky which took place at the Paris theatre. The premiere of Sasha Waltz’ ballet in St Petersburg will take place on 14 May, followed by the Paris premiere in late May in a programme also including Vaslav Nijinsky’s Le Sacre and another famous ballet of Diaghilev’s Saisons russes – George Balanchine’s Prodigal Son.
During the season, the Mariinsky Ballet Company will be appearing on tour in America (in major towns and cities in California and in Washington at the Kennedy Center in October 2012), Asia (Taiwan, Seoul and cities throughout Japan in late October – early December 2012) and Abu-Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (March 2013). In spring 2013 in Moscow the Mariinsky Ballet Company will be performing a premiere of last season – George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream – during the Golden Mask festival.
Particularly noteworthy is the company’s first visit to the Trinity Festival in Salzburg with ballets to music by Igor Stravinsky to be conducted by Maestro Valery Gergiev.
At the close of the season as part of the Stars of the White Nights festival there will be a tour by Israel’s acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company and the Nederlands Dans Theater with works by Paul Lightfoot.
The new season has seen fifteen graduates of the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet join the Mariinsky Ballet Company.

The season’s opera and symphony music programme
A series of events and premieres of the opera and symphony music programme of the 2012-2013 playbill will commemorate important dates: eighty years since the birth of Russia’s greatest living composer Rodion Shchedrin (December 2012) and two centuries since the births of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, both to be celebrated in 2013.
The Mariinsky’s performances and concerts of Wagnerian music will cover the entire season: following a three-year absence, in late September the grandiose Der Ring des Nibelungen returns (26–30 September), while on 5 October at the Concert Hall Maestro Valery Gergiev will be conducting a Wagner gala featuring Nina Stemme, one of the world’s greatest Wagnerian singers. 10 December will see renowned French conductor Marc Minkowski conduct the theatre’s orchestra once again in a programme featuring highlights from Wagner’s operas Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Der Fliegende Hollander and Die Walkure as well as a symphony by Bruckner.
The Year of Verdi at the Mariinsky Theatre begins with a premiere of Don Carlo (29 November) to be staged by renowned Italian director Giorgio Barberio Corsetti who has worked with Maestro Valery Gergiev at La Scala.
The season’s opera premieres include the eagerly awaited stage version of Jules Massenet’s opera Don Quichotte with Ferruccio Furlanetto in the title role to be staged by Yannis Kokkos (28 December), Alexander Dargomyzhsky’s Rusalka staged by Vasily Barkhatov (February 2013) and the April premiere of another French opera – Charles Gounod’s Faust to be staged by Isabella Bywater who worked as the designer on Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and who is now making her debut as a director.
To mark Rodion Shchedrin’s eightieth birthday the Mariinsky Theatre will be running a two-day festival in St Petersburg (22 and 23 December) and Moscow (24 and 25 December). One evening will see performances of four of the composer’s six piano concertos featuring soloists Maestro Denis Matsuev, Alexei Volodin and Yeol Eum Son (recipient of the 2^nd prize at the XIV Tchaikovsky Competition) and Olli Mustonen. Yet another evening will include the Russian premiere of the mono-opera Cleopatra and the Serpent, commissioned from the composer by Salzburg’s Trinity Festival.

During the 2012-2013 season at the Concert Hall there will be a series of three concerts (1 November, 2 January and 3 July) by the The State Borodin Quartet featuring a programme of quartets by Tchaikovsky and Brahms. Chamber Ensemble "Moscow Soloists" (GRAMMY WINNER 2007 "Best Small Ensemble Performance - Best Ensemble") and Maestro Yuri Bashmet (GRAMMY WINNER 2007 "Best Small Ensemble Performance - Best Conductor") will be performing at the hall during their own anniversary season. The Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra will once again be conducted by young conductors Nikolai Znaider and Pablo Heras-Casado; the latter will also be conducting a performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony with Olga Borodina in October among other appearances.
This season, the International Piano Festival at the Concert Hall runs from 27 November until 2 December. The programme includes all of Beethoven’s piano concerti with pianist Nicholas Angelich, performances by pianists from the class of highly acclaimed tutor Marina Wolf, a recital by Polina Osetinskaya and much more besides.

Important tours of the theatre’s Symphony Orchestra in the 2012-2013 season include an October tour to Canada and the USA culminating with a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York, a large-scale tour of the Far East in November taking in Seoul and major cities in Japan and China, a January tour to Spain, an April tour to Italy including concerts in Rome and Milan and an appearance at the Trinity Festival in Salzburg.
This season the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Valery Gergiev and Paris’ Salle Pleyel commence their joint project All of Shostakovich’s Symphonies: over two years at the Salle Pleyel the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Valery Gergiev will perform all of the composer’s symphonies as well as several of his concerti. The project begins in January 2013, and the Mariinsky label will subsequently be releasing video recordings of the concerts.

The Mariinsky Opera Company will be appearing at the Golden Mask festival in Moscow with last season’s premieres – Claude Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande and Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. In Kazan the theatre will be performing a Wagner gala as well as a performance of one of this season’s premieres – Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte.

The season will come to a close with the Stars of the White Nights festival, which will run from 24 May to 14 July 2013 and unite events in three venues – the theatre’s historic stage, the new stage and the Concert Hall.

The theatre also plans to produce video recordings of ballets and operas that comprise the glory of the Mariinsky Theatre. Leonid Baratov and Fyodor Fedorovsky’s legendary production of Khovanshchina which opened the season was recorded for subsequent broadcast on Kultura TV on 23 September at 21:25 and which will later be released on DVD. In 2013 there will be DVD releases of recordings of the operas Iolanta with Anna Netrebko, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Attila with Ildar Abdrazakov and Dead Souls.
During the Year of Wagner, the Mariinsky label will produce an audio recording of two operas from the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen – Das Rheingold and Die Walküre featuring the Mariinsky Opera Company’s leading Wagnerian singers and guest stars Nina Stemme, Jonas Kaufmann and Rene Pape.