Mariinsky Theatre

The Mariinsky Theatre opens its door to opera and ballet performances

11 July 2020 by gramilano Leave a Comment

After last night’s socially distanced concert by Denis Matsuev at the Mariinsky Theatre – which was streamed live on the theatre’s YouTube channel – the mini-season for the Stars of the White Nights festival will continue today with a concert performance of Samson et Dalila this afternoon, followed by a ballet gala this evening with Ekaterina Kondaurova, Alina Somova, Viktoria Tereshkina, Kimin Kim, Xander Parish, and Vladimir Shklyarov.

The gala will be repeated tomorrow, Sunday 12 July, in the afternoon, followed by

Introducing 19-year-old Canadian dancer Shale Wagman: from Lausanne to ENB to the Mariinsky

29 August 2019 by gramilano 5 Comments

Canadian dancer Shale Wagman turned 19 last May. Soon after he was guesting at the Mariinsky Theatre. What’s more, it was his first time dancing a principal role. Ever. Last season – his first as a professional dancer – he was dancing with English National Ballet’s corps de ballet, part of his prize after winning […]

Ballet dancer Sergei Vikharev died in his dentist’s chair

8 June 2017 by gramilano 2 Comments

Sergei Vikharev, the former Russian dancer renowned for his reconstruction of ballets and who died last Friday at 55, will be celebrated in the foyer of the Mariinsky Theatre today, before being buried in St Petersburg’s Serafimovskoe Cemetery, which is also the resting place of many other Mariinsky dancers including Yuri Soloviev, Feya Balabina and […]

Children banned from the Bolshoi Ballet

30 November 2016 by gramilano 4 Comments

A week ago, a group of parents with their young children – 5-11 years-old – were refused entrance to a performance of Swan Lake, and without a refund being offered. The Bolshoi’s General Director, Vladimir Urin, said that varying age restrictions were allotted to the company’s ballets after the theatre had received multiple complaints from […]

The 7th Vaganova-PRIX takes place in October… and now’s the time to apply

12 July 2016 by gramilano Leave a Comment

The Vaganova Ballet Academy is reviving the International Ballet Competition Vaganova-PRIX. This year will be the seventh time that the competition has been held and it will take place in St Petersburg on 23-29 October. The Vaganova-PRIX was founded by the Vaganova Ballet Academy in 1988 and in 1995 it went international. The glamorous list […]

Vaganova Ballet Academy to open a new school in Vladivostok – 10,000 km from St Petersburg

23 June 2016 by gramilano 3 Comments

by guest blogger Elizaveta Dilanyan On 18 June it was announced that Vaganova Ballet Academy will open a second campus in Vladivostok, the capital of the Primorsky Krai province, in far eastern Russian, almost 10,000 km away from St Petersburg in the extreme west by car or train. The train journey will take almost week, though […]

Maya Plisetskaya’s 90th birthday celebrated in concerts and exhibitions

19 November 2015 by gramilano Leave a Comment

20 November 2015 would have been Maya Plisetskaya’s 90th birthday. The great Russian ballerina, who died on 2 May this year, will be remembered in a series of events in Moscow and St Petersburg. On 18 November her friend, and musical director of the Mariinsky Theatre, Valery Gergiev gave a concert at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert […]

Cecilia Bartoli: “Contemporary composers can’t write for opera singers like me”

13 October 2014 by gramilano 6 Comments

I’ve been following this project for eight years and I’ve been to St Petersburg many times in train or by ship, because I don’t like flying; one of the most beautiful trips was on the icebreaker from Lübeck in Germany. I put on gloves and rummaged through the archives of the Mariinsky Theatre, through documents that are […]

Tsiskaridze’s reputation is not as high as state officials’ wives would have you believe

5 November 2013 by gramilano 1 Comment

Earlier today, teachers at the Vaganova Ballet Academy published an open letter, written in four languages, to President Vladimir Putin asking him to reconsider the appointment of Nikolay Tsiskaridze as the new school principal. Diana Vishneva was one of the first to openly criticise Tsiskaridze’s appointment, saying that it could ruin the future of the renowned […]

Tsiskaridze is Principal and Lopatkina the new Artistic Director of the Vaganova Academy

28 October 2013 by gramilano 1 Comment

Nikolay Tsiskaridze has been appointed Principal of the Vaganova Ballet Academy, and Ulyana Lopatkina will be its new Artistic Director. Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky told Izvestia: Tsiskaridze is preparing thoroughly to take up this post, bringing with him a wealth of teaching experience, and his training in the legal profession. Lopatkina is now at the height of her […]