Opera Scotland

Gergiev and Opera in Scotland

Posted 23 Aug 2012

Valery Gergiev, Honorary President of the Edinburgh International Festival, is returning to conduct the LSO (Brahms and Szymanowski) and four performances with the Mariinsky Ballet of Prokofiev's Cinderella. So there is an opportunity to remember some of his earlier operatic performances.  Gergiev first came to Scotland in 1988, touring the country with the SNO in a programme of Mozart and Beethoven.  His first Festival visit, in 1991, featured a celebration by the Kirov Opera of the works of Musorgsky, with a production of Khovanshchina and a concert performance of Boris Godunov as well as the unfinished segments of Salammbo and Sorochintsy Fair.

In 1995, he returned with two of Rimsky-Korsakov's colourful folk-tales, Sadko and The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh.  He added a concert performance of Ruslan and Lyudmila.  The 2008 visit of what was now the Mariinsky centred on the Scottish premiere of Szymanowski's exotic masterpiece, King Roger.  There was also a concert with Rachmaninov's Aleko.  He and his Mariinsky company returned last year with Die Frau ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss.  Click through the links to read Opera Scotland's entry.