Conductor:
Valerij Gergijev

Mariinsky Theatre, St Peterburg

Cast:
Siegmund: Avgust Amonov
Hunding: Pavel Šmulevič
Wotan: Taras Štonda
Sieglinde: Mlada Hudolej
Brünnhilde: Olga Savova
Fricka: Jekaterina Semenčuk
Gerhilde: Žanna Dombrovskaja
Ortlinde: Irina Vasiljeva
Waltraute: Nataljia Jevstafijeva
Schwetleite: Ljudmila Kanunnikova
Helmwige: Tatjana Kavcova
Siegrune: Jekaterina Sergejeva
Grimgerde: Jelena Vitman
Rossweisse: Julia Matočkina

This year we are looking forward again to the guest appearance of the charismatic conductor Valery Gergiev, who is to perform with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra of St Petersburg two operas by Richard Wagner on the Cankarjev dom grand
stage. Thus the Ljubljana Festival, its artists and grateful audience will pay its tribute to the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great German opera dramatist in the noblest way.

Maestro Gergiev is one of the most interesting conductors of his generation. Born in Moscow, in 1953, he won the prestigious Herbert von Karajan Competition in Berlin at the age of twenty three, which opened him the doors to all the best world orchestras. First a chief conductor in Rotterdam, he was also appointed in 2005 chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. In 1988 he became chief conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre and in 2003 decided to perform with this ensemble the complete Wagner’s tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung. Richard Wagner lived in Switzerland, when he started to implement his new ideas on theatre and music. He conveyed them into interesting writings and also began to write a libretto for the tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung. The first outlines of his work appeared around 1848 in Dresden, whereas the libretto was finished only four years later. Then the musical genius set himself to composing. He first created The Rhine Gold in 1854 and two years later The Valkyrie. The tetralogy is based on German mythology. »According to Wagner’s thinking the myth presents in its simple and concentrated form an interaction of eternal forces that affect the people’s attitude to deity and nature as well as their mutual relations in the society and thus the eternal religious, social and economic issues as well. These questions are illustrated within the myth with symbols that are objects or persons. With his tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung Wagner finally passed over to the realm of the new romantic music.« (Jože Sivec) The other two operas from the tetralogy will be presented by the famous Mariinsky Theatre of St Petersburg under the baton of Maestro Valery Gergiev in summer 2014.