Igor Stravinsky. Les Noces, The Firebird, Oedipus Rex. Conductor: Valery Gergiev

Valery Gergiev is a vivid representative of the St Petersburg conducting school and a former pupil of the legendary Professor Ilya Musin. While still a student at the Rimsky-Korsakov Leningrad State Conservatory, Gergiev won the Herbert von Karajan Competition in Berlin and the All-Union Conducting Competition in Moscow, following which he was invited to join the Kirov Theatre (now the Mariinsky) as an assistant to the principal conductor. His debut as a conductor at the theatre came on 12 January 1978 with Sergei Prokofiev’s opera War and Peace. In 1988 Valery Gergiev was appointed Music Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, and in 1996 he became its Artistic and General Director (leading the orchestra and opera and ballet companies). Moreover, since December 2023 he has also been General Director of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia and Co-Chairman for the musical division of the Theatre Union of the Russian Federation.

Details to be announced later