"The Stars of the White Nights 2008" International Ballet and Opera Festival (10 May 2008 - 27 July 2008)
Artistic Director – Maestro Valery Gergiev
The Stars of the White Nights Festival is one of the most popular and important events in terms of contemporary music and theatre.
The Stars of the White Nights Festival was initiated in 1993 by Valery Gergiev, Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Theatre. The maestro says that he envisaged the first Festival as a "musical gift" to the city from the Mariinsky Theatre and the soloists who agreed to perform. From the first, the Festival turned to the best of world music, including works that are rarely performed or have been undeservedly forgotten.
The Stars of the White Nights Festival has gained in strength, popularity and international acclaim. Over fifteen years, the ten-day Festival has expanded to cover two or three months in summer. Renowned conductors and soloists consider it a special honour to perform at the Stars of the White Nights. Every year the Festival programme includes the Theatre's best opera and ballet productions, grandiose symphony works, chamber music and new theatre premieres. In recent years the Festival playbill has included programmes of works by supreme classical composers – Beethoven and Prokofiev's symphonies and opera and ballet and symphony music by Tchaikovsky. One major event in recent years was the staging of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, in addition to the Shostakovich Symphonies and Mahler Symphonies series.
This festival is a must for ballet, opera and classical music lovers. The annual White Nights Festival derives its name from the short summer season when the sun never sets, and the beauty of these White Nights contributes to the festival’s special atmosphere and its world-class programme of concerts, as audiences exit the historic theatre at midnight into daylight to stroll home through the theatrical setting of St Petersburg.