From 2 to 13 April the Mariinsky Theatre will present the 9^th International Flute and Harp Music Festival Virtuosi of the Flute & Northern Lyre, initiated by Denis Lupachev and Sofia Kiprskaya. A rich and diverse programme awaits the public: premieres written specifically for the festival, masterpieces of the world repertoire, and works that will receive their Russian premieres. Top musicians from Russia, China, Hungary, France, Belarus and Spain will demonstrate their mastery

The Genius of Place festival, a musical homage to great Russian composers, is set to return. This year, from 20 to 23 March, Valery Gergiev and the combined forces of Russia’s two leading musical theatres – the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi – will perform in the birthplaces of Modest Musorgsky (Pskov), Sergei Rachmaninoff (Veliky Novgorod) and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Tikhvin)

The Mariinsky and Bolshoi theatres are set to welcome spring with a series of major events, including their most extensive exchange programme in recent years. Wagner’s monumental Der Ring des Nibelungen will travel to Moscow, where it will be presented twice on the Bolshoi Theatre’s Historic Stage. In return the Bolshoi Theatre will bring its acclaimed production of Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims to St Petersburg, followed by the ballet The Master and Margarita, set to music by Schnittke and Lazar. Later in the month, the two companies will join forces for performances in Tikhvin, the birthplace of Rimsky-Korsakov, and Pskov, where they will honour the legacy of Musorgsky

The Mariinsky Theatre is set to unveil a fascinating rarity – scenes from Modest Musorgsky’s unfinished opera Salammbô. This early work, a captivating glimpse into the composer’s burgeoning genius, receives its premiere on the Mariinsky Theatre’s New Stage on 22 and 23 February (at 13:00 and 19:00)

On 9 February, the birthday of Honoured Artist of Russia Vladimir Shklyarov, the Mariinsky Theatre will host an evening dedicated to the memory of the brilliant danseur noble on its Historic Stage. Stars of both the Mariinsky and Bolshoi ballets will participate in this special event. Arseny Shuplyakov will conduct the Mariinsky Orchestra