Valery Gergiev
Valery Gergiev’s inspired leadership as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre since 1988 has taken Mariinsky ensembles to 45 countries—presenting the best of Russian operas and ballets, as well as the complete Shostakovich and Prokofiev symphonies and Wagner’s Ring cycle—and has brought universal acclaim to this legendary institution, now in its 226th season.
The Mariinsky Label’s releases in the first year include Shostakovich’s The Nose and Symphonies Nos. 1 and 15, a Tchaikovsky disc of short pieces, Shchedrin’s The Enchanted Wanderer, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and “Paganini” Variations. The label’s first two recordings received five Grammy Award nominations, including Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Album (The Nose) and Best Orchestral Performance (Symphonies 1 and 15), as well as additional nominations for engineering and production.
Presently Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Gergiev is also founder and Artistic Director of the Stars of the White Nights and New Horizons festivals in St. Petersburg, the Moscow Easter Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, the Mikkeli Music Festival, and the Red Sea Festival in Israel. He succeeded Sir Georg Solti as conductor of the World Orchestra for Peace in 1998.
Born in Moscow, Mr. Gergiev studied conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory. At age 24, he was the winner of the Herbert von Karajan Conductors’ Competition in Berlin, and made his Mariinsky Opera debut one year later in 1978, conducting Prokofiev’s War and Peace. In 2003, he led St. Petersburg’s 300th anniversary celebrations and opened the Carnegie Hall season with the Mariinsky Orchestra, the first Russian conductor to do so since Tchaikovsky conducted the Hall’s inaugural concert in 1891.
Highlights of the 2008–2009 season included a Prokofiev cycle at Lincoln Center, a cycle of Prokofiev symphonies and concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra in Paris and Tokyo, and the Mariinsky Theatre’s production of Wagner’s Ring at Covent Garden, London.
In the 2009–2010 season, Maestro Gergiev conducts Berlioz’s Les Troyens in St. Petersburg, Valencia, and at Carnegie Hall. He also conducts the New York Philharmonic in a three-week Stravinsky festival, presents a Mariinsky Shostakovich cycle in Vienna, leads works of Henri Dutilleux with the London Symphony, and conducts Shostakovich’s The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera. In the 2010–2011 season, he offers a Mahler cycle in London, New York, Paris, and Japan.
Maestro Gergiev is the recipient of a Grammy Award, the Dmitri Shostakovich Award, Golden Mask Award, People’s Artist of Russia Award, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, Netherlands’s Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion, Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, Valencia’s Silver Medal, the Herbert von Karajan Prize, and France’s Royal Order of the Legion of Honor.
Mr. Gergiev’s recordings of Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 have been released on LSO Live, as part of a complete recorded Mahler cycle. Future LSO Live recordings will include Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Prokofiev’s complete Romeo and Juliet.
Mariinsky Orchestra
The Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre—which celebrated the theater’s 225th Anniversary in 2008—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, the orchestra entered its “golden age” in the second half of the 19th century under the musical direction of Eduard Nápravnik (1863 to 1916).
The theater’s many highlights include the world premiere of Verdi’s La forza del destino, as well as the first Russian performances of Wagner’s Ring cycle, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal; Richard Strauss’s Elektra, Salome, and Der Rosenkavalier; and Berg’s Wozzeck. Numerous internationally famed musicians have conducted the orchestra, among them Hans von Bülow, Felix Mottl, Felix Weingartner, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Otto Nikisch, Willem Mengelberg, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Erich Kleiber, Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, and Arnold Schoenberg.
Renamed the Kirov during the Soviet era, the orchestra continued to maintain its high artistic standards under the leadership of Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov. The theater recently reclaimed the Mariinsky name and, under the leadership of Valery Gergiev, has forged important relationships with the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls.
Under the baton of Valery Gergiev, the orchestra recorded exclusively for Universal Philips and Decca Classics since 1989. Since 1992, the orchestra has made 14 tours of North America, including a 2006 celebration of the complete Shostakovich symphonies and a 2008 cycle of the stage works of Prokofiev.
November 2006 marked the grand opening of the orchestra’s new home at the Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall. The only theater and concert venue of its kind in Russia, the hall is on the site of the historic Set Workshop, which served the Mariinsky for over a century and created some of its most famous productions. The hall’s acoustics, the work of Yasuhisa Toyota, have brought accolades ranking it alongside the world’s finest modern concert venues.
The orchestra currently records on its Mariinsky Label; recent releases include Shostakovich’s The Nose and Symphonies Nos. 1 and 15, works by Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and “Paganini” Variations. The label’s first two recordings received five Grammy nominations.
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