Mariinsky Opera (Kirov Opera of the Mariinsky Theatre)

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 Orphée 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 Götterdämmerung 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 Lásló 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, Khovanshina, 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 Hollönder, 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 Walküre 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 Opéra 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.

WHO IS WHO

Valery Gergiev, Artistic & General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre
Graduated in symphony conducting from the Leningrad Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire (class of Professor Musin). At age 23, he won the Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in Berlin and, while still a student at the Conservatoire, was invited to join the Kirov Theatre.
Conducted at the Kirov Theatre from 1977. From 1981-85, he was also Principal Guest Conductor with the State Symphony Orchestra of Armenia.
At the age of 35, Valery Gergiev was appointed Artistic Director of the Opera Company and, from 1996, has been Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre.
Throughout his years of dedication to the theatre, the Maestro´s main aim has always been to make the Mariinsky Opera Company the best in the world. Over the last fifteen years, the repertoire has undergone unprecedented development. The Mariinsky Theatre has staged operas including Mozart´s Don Giovanni, Musorgsky´s The Sorochinsky Fair, Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Verdi´s Otello, Aida, La forza del destino, Don Carlos, Macbeth, Un ballo in maschera and La traviata, Prokofiev´s Fiery Angel, The Gambler, War and Peace, Betrothal in a Monastery and Semyon Kotko, Rimsky-Korsakov´s The Maid of Pskov, Sadko, Kashchei the Immortal, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maid Fevronia and The Tsar´s Bride, Shostakovich´s Katerina Ismailova, Strauss´ Salome and Tchaikovsky´s Mazepa, The Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin. The return of Wagner´s operas Lohengrin, Parsifal and Der Fliegende Holländer to the St Petersburg stage are among some of the highlights, to say nothing of the production of the entire Der Ring des Nibelungen tetralogy of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Die Götterdämmerung in the original German, a unique and unprecedented event in Russia.
In the recent 2004-2005 season alone, the Mariinsky Opera Company presented seven premieres – Rimsky-Korsakov´s The Tsar´s Bride and The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Puccini´s Madama Butterfly, Bizet´s Carmen, Verdi´s Rigoletto, Rossini´s Il viaggio a Reims and Wagner´s Tristan und Isolde.
Valery Gergiev is the founder and artistic director of many international music festivals including For Peace in the Caucasus (Vladikavkaz), the Mikkeli Festival (Finland), the Red Sea Festival (Eilat), the Kirov Philharmonic (London), the Rotterdam Philharmonic-Gergiev Festival (the Netherlands) and the Moscow Easter Festival. He organised and ran a Musorgsky Festival (1988), a Prokofiev Festival (1991, 1992), presenting a wide spectrum of the composer´s works including four opera premieres (War and Peace, Love for Three Oranges, The Gambler and []iFiery Angel), several symphonies and cantata-oratory works, and a Rimsky-Korsakov in the 20th Century festival (1994), which had a great influence on world musical culture. Lastly, of course, Valery Gergiev is also the inspiration and energy behind St Petersburg´s annual Stars of the White Nights festival, which he established in 1993.
In the 2004-2005 season, Valery Gergiev initiated a world-wide series of charity concerts entitled Beslan. Music for Life. Under the Maestro´s direction, concerts were held in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Rome and Moscow.
It was Valery Gergiev who first envisaged artistic co-operation between the Mariinsky Theatre and the world´s leading opera houses, among them the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, the Teatro Carlo Felice, the San Francisco Opera, La Scala, the New Israeli Opera and the Théâtre du Châtelet.
Valery Gergiev is one of the finest conductors of our time. He works with such renowned ensembles as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (UK), L´Orchestre National de France, Swedish Radio Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Minnesota, Montreal and Birmingham. He has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic since 1995 and of the Metropolitan Opera from 1997 to 2002. From 1 January 2007 Valery Gergiev will be Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Under Valery Gergiev´s management, the Mariinsky Theatre has toured extensively, performing to great acclaim in countries all over Europe, in North and South America, China, Japan and Australia. The Mariinsky Theatre´s summer tours to London have long since become a tradition. The most recent performances by the Mariinsky Theatre on the famed stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, took place in July and August 2005. The tour began with performances of ballets in the classical repertoire as well as one of the theatre´s latest acquisitions – the ballets of William Forsythe. The opera company staged performances of Musorgsky´s Khovanshchina and Boris Godunov and Puccini´s Turandot before the London public.
Special mention must be made of the now long established partnership between Maestro Gergiev and Philips, which has resulted in the production of over thirty compact disc recordings.
Together with the Mariinsky Theatre and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestras, he has conducted recordings of operas, ballets and concert programmes from his vast repertoire which includes works by Russian and non-Russian composers alike, among them Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bizet, Berlioz, Verdi, Brahms and Bruckner.
Maestro Gergiev´s artistic achievements have brought him many awards and titles. He holds the titles of Honoured Worker for the Arts of Russia (1983) and People´s Artist of Russia (1996). In the same year, the jury of the International Classical Music Awards conferred upon him the title of Conductor of the Year. He was awarded the State Prize of Russia in 1994 and 1999. As Best Conductor, he was awarded the Russia´s highest theatre prize Golden Mask (1996 –2000) and the St Petersburg´s highest theatre prize Golden Sophit, in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2003. In 1998, Philips Electronics awarded him a special prize for his outstanding contribution to music, which he donated to the development of the Mariinsky Theatre Academy of Young Singers. In 2000, Valery Gergiev was made a full member of the International Academy of Arts. In the same year, he was awarded the highest prizes of Russia – the Order of Friendship and Armenia – the Order of St Mesrop Mashtots. Maestro Gergiev has also been decorated with Germany´s Bundesverdienstkreuz (first class), Italy´s Grand Ufficiale al Merito and France´s L´Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2002, he received the Russian Presidential Prize for his outstanding contribution to arts and sciences.

In March 2003, he was made an Artist of the World by UNESCO. In April 2003, was decorated with the order For Services to the Fatherland, third class. In June 2003, the Patriarch of All Russia Alexei II awarded Valery Gergiev the Order of St Prince Daniil of Moscow of the Russian Orthodox Church, third class, for participating in charitable and cultural programmes of the Russian Orthodox Church. Awarded the medal In Commemoration of the Tercentenary of St Petersburg. In November 2003, Valery Gergiev was presented with the National Pride of Russia award in the category For an outstanding contribution to cultural development and Russia´s highest public award For Work and the Fatherland.Valery Gergiev has been awarded the Crystal Prize for his dedication to the arts and his contribution to cultural dialogue; the prize was presented by the World Economic Forum in Davos. In April 2004, Valery Gergiev was made a People´s Artist of Ukraine, the country´s highest State award, in recognition of his "important contribution to the development of cultural relations between Ukraine and Russia and his many years of fruitful activity". Valery Gergiev has also been awarded the Order of Danaker, presented by the Government of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan.
In September 2005 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands made Valery Gergiev a Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion. As the royal decree proclaimed, the Russian musician received this eminent Dutch award for his exceptional character, international importance and his worldwide activities in music. In November 2005 Valery Gergiev has been awarded the Polar Music Prize of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music for his "unique, electrifying musicianship, which becomes ever richer with time and makes us re-examine our attitudes to a great tradition". In February 2006 – has been awarded the Herbert von Karajan Prize, which was founded by the Baden-Baden Music Festival – Valery Gergiev was named "one of the most important cultural figures of our age". In March 2006 Valery Gergiev has been awarded a prize by the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation for his outstanding contribution to the development of cultural relations between Russia and the USA. In May 2006 Valery Gergiev has been awarded the Order of Yaroslav the Wise, 5th Class, "for his significant personal contribution to the development of cultural relations between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, his true professionalism and long and successful career in arts" and was awarded the Commanders´ Order of the Lion of Finland – Finnish President Tarja Halonen awarded the Maestro with this national award for his outstanding contribution to developing musical culture in Finland and strengthening Russo-Finnish cultural relations.