Mariinsky Theatre returns to China for annual arts festival

The orchestra, ballet and opera companies of Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg are touring China during the annual Mariinsky Theatre Festival.

Since 2016, the theater has come to China and held an annual arts festival, co-organized by Wu Promotion, a Chinese company that does music tours. This time the team includes 91 singers, 102 dances, 173 musicians and 60 technical and management staff.

The tour kicked off on Nov 20 in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and will run through Dec 7, visiting Shanghai, Nanjing, in Jiangsu province, and Beijing.

Under the baton of Valery Gergiev, the artistic director of Mariinsky Theater, the orchestra performs programs including Rimsky Korsakov's suite from the opera The Tale of Czar Saltan, Richard Wagner's last opera, Parsifal and Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. The ballet company brings Don Quixote and selections from three ballet pieces, Chopiniana, Schéhérazade and The Firebird.

"When we are on tour we represent Russian culture, the composers and the best of our nation's historical achievements," says maestro Gergiev in an email interview to China Daily ahead of the performance of Parsifal at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

"Chinese audiences are an important part of the huge community of music lovers around the world," he adds, noting: "I, along with many people around the world, are impressed by the intensity and greatness of the country's change, especially where new concert halls, new opera houses are being built so rapidly.

"It provides many more opportunities for the public to enjoy music performed by the many musicians in China, as well as those visiting artists," Gergiev says.

Gergiev first came to China with Mariinsky Orchestra in 1998 and gave a concert at the Great Hall of the People. The following year, the conductor, along with the theater company, gave the first concert at the opening of the Shanghai Grand Theatre, at the same time becoming the first foreign performing arts group to play there. Then, in 2007, Gergiev and the theater were invited to perform at the opening of the National Centre for the Performing Arts.

He says the friendship with China "has been always a two-way communication".

Each year since 2007, he has been bringing the theater's programs to the NCPA, usually devoted to a big-name composer, such as Tchaikovsky, Chostakovitch, Stravinsky or Rachmaninoff. In 2014, the NCPA and Mariinsky Theatre held their first coproduction of an opera, Eugene Onegin, which premiered at Mariinsky Theatre.

In Sept, 2018, The Dawns Here Are Quiet, an original opera production by the NCPA based on the novel of the same title by Russian writer, Boris Vasilyev, made its debut at Mariinsky Theatre, with artists from the orchestra and the Western Military District Ensemble performing together with Chinese singers of the NCPA.

On Dec 4, a Chinese dance drama, Confucius, based on the wisdom and life of the philosopher, will be performed by the China National Opera and Dance Drama Theater at Mariinsky Theatre, to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

"I performed many times with Lang Lang and Yuja Wang. I have also worked with Chinese composers and singers. It is my top priority to facilitate the exchange between young Chinese and Russian musicians," says Gergiev, adding that he recently worked with two Chinese winners of the 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition: French horn player Zeng Yun, who took the gold medal and caused a sensation in the competition, and pianist An Tianxu who played along with the conductor in Nanjing on Nov 23.

Gergiev was appointed as music director of Mariinsky Theatre in 1988 at the age of 35, and in 1996 he became its artistic and general director, leading the orchestra and opera and ballet companies.

As one of the busiest musicians in the world, the conductor gives about 300 performances per year, "covering four, sometimes five, continents in a year".

"I always try to concentrate on a few things. That's why I stopped conducting too many orchestras and do not consider going back to every city I have visited," he says.

"The human race has brought us Shakespeare, Mozart and Dostoyevsky. As we continue on this path, I limit myself to those 25 composers, whose music is always with me."