Marinsky Theatre St Petersburg

[soraya]

Hi, I'm trying to organise a tour with either Red October or Denrus. I'm really interested in going to the Marinsky Theatre to see the Kirov Ballet and wondered if anyone else had done this and roughly what it cost?

 

Otherwise it's either the Folkloric show with RO or the Yusupov Palace with HAL. Does anyone have any experience of the HAL tour?

 

Thanks Soraya

[gdayhoff]

We did it in August 2003 with Red October and it was $110 pp.Very good seats.Have you visted http://www.mariinsky.ru/en ?

[stanj]

Hi, I'm trying to organise a tour with either Red October or Denrus. I'm really interested in going to the Marinsky Theatre to see the Kirov Ballet and wondered if anyone else had done this and roughly what it cost?

 

Otherwise it's either the Folkloric show with RO or the Yusupov Palace with HAL. Does anyone have any experience of the HAL tour?

 

Thanks Soraya

 

Hi Soraya

If you have any appriation for ballet, you will kick yourself if you miss the Kirov in favor of the folkloric shows. The Mariinski is to ballet what La Scala is to opera...the place to be as a performer or a member of the audience.

 

The folkloric shows are good entertainment but not in the same league as the Kirov. Other world class venues present wonderful performances almost everyday for opera, classical, jazz and chamber music, and ballet that are a lot less expensive but most do not publish their schedule far in advance. You will have to search since we can not share that type of information on this forum anymore or you can write privately for suggestions. Or try other forums that do allow sharing.

[soraya]

Thanks for the reply. I have actually been fortunate enough to see the Kirov your the UK, but would love to see them in their home environment. I had a look at the Marinsky website, but they don't have too much info this far ahead, although they may be touring here in the UK in early August.

 

I'm really confused by the posting about tours. I used the Princess forum for Tahiti last year and a lot of tours were organised in exactly the same way. I think the policy is OK if the company is posting asking for people to come on their tour, but if CC members are doing it, what's the problem? That doesn't seem like promoting the company to me, IMHO. I thought that was what the boards were for - sharing info, including good and bad tours and finding people to share them.

 

Hope it doesn't kill this forum off, there aren't alot of places to get this sort of obsessive detail from! :)

 

Soraya

[M&T]

We will be in St. Petersburg in July. I would love to see the theater, but is it true that the Mariinsky is closed then? When we were in St. Petersburg before we saw ballet one night and the folklore the next. Both were wonderful.

 

I'm sure it would be fantastic to see a ballet at the Mariinsky!

Marlyne

[cosmo49au]

Hello, I'm on the Regatta Baltic cruise June 22 and have been told by Denrus the Kirov will have their season published online in April. I'm hoping to be able to see the company too.

Cheers, Meg.

[stanj]

We will be in St. Petersburg in July. I would love to see the theater, but is it true that the Mariinsky is closed then? When we were in St. Petersburg before we saw ballet one night and the folklore the next. Both were wonderful.

 

I'm sure it would be fantastic to see a ballet at the Mariinsky!

Marlyne

 

Mariinsky is normally closed Aug for repairs. It is a marvel of organization to be able to stage two completely different programs most days, a concert in the afternoon and ballet in the evening with all the set changes that go with such productions. Visiting backstages for someone like me who is interested in the details of production is very interesting. They have an 11 month season, quite amazing that they can pull it off so perfectly.

 

One note: often touring troupes or reviews are seen in the US but none of these are the real principle company under whose name they promote themselves. Mostly it is the Bolshoi from Moscow. These performances are usually either completed unrelated to the real Bolshoi or are fund raising tours made up of understudies. One of the tasks of younger dancers is to tour in these commercial operations for both the practice and for much needed cash infusions into the accounts of the parent theater and dance company. I've seen "Bolshoi" versions of Swan Lake for example in San Francisco that was very poor when compared to either the local S.F. company or any major company in Russia. The Kirov is much more "pure" in that it has a long and distinguished history of the prime training program that produces the best dancers and for having the most highly regarded choreographers and teachers. There are other theaters in SPb that feature exciting but less known outside Russia performers.

If the program at the Mariinsky is not your cup of tea the night you can go, check out the Hermitage Imperial Theater or the "State theater of ballet abd opera of St Petersburg Conservatory by the name of N.A. Rimskiy-Korsakov" ....I swear that is the theaters real name! Many of the theaters have such long names but no one uses those names in conversations. The prices for admission in these almost as spectacular theaters(Nothing, anywhere compares to Mariinsky) are quite modest. Sometimes the Grand Philharmonic Hall across the street from the Grand Hotel Europe stages ballet. I first saw my favorite dancer there, Anastasia Volokovich who trained with the Kirov but was hired away to become a principle dancer for Moscow's Bolshoi. She became famous outisde the ballet world when she was fired for being to big and fat! She is big for a dancer, 5'7" but only 118lbs is not what I call fat. She sells out solo recitals all over and is now a super star of dance. I got to interview her for a newspaper article and while I greatly enjoyed every performance I has seen of hers, after talking to her for an hour, I fell in LOVE with her. But that is another story. Most people simply call the Philharmonic Hall the Shostakovich Hall. One of my favorites is the Glinka concert hall.

 

The web sites which can not be posted here anyway, are not very accurate particularly more than a month in advance of performances except for the Mariinsky which usually publishes their schedule 2-3 months ahead. Normally their performances are sold out in the summer.