Valery Abissalovich Gergiev ‘Gergiev carries a disproportionate share of the music world on his shoulders. He is something of a national hero in Russia for having kept alive the Mariinsky Theatre after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under his leadership, the Mariinsky has become one of the most celebrated - and recorded - opera companies in the world.’ The New Yorker Valery Gergiev spends about 250 days a year with the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet, is Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (one of his first openings in the West), has become the first Principal Guest Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, and has worked with the world’s major international orchestras and opera companies. Valery Gergiev is currently known as ‘the cultural Messiah’ who is ‘the hottest conductor on the world circuit’ (Time Out, London). He has also appeared with the leading orchestras of the former Soviet Union and for four years as the Chief Conductor of The Armenian State Opera. Notable opera engagements have included Eugene Onegin, Lohengrin and Semyon Kotko at the Royal Opera House, The Gambler and Khovanshchina at La Scala, War and Peace, Fiery Angel and Herodiade at San Francisco Opera and Otello, The Queen of Spades, Lady Macbeth and Boris Godunov at the Metropolitan Opera. In addition, he works increasingly with the Wiener Philharmoniker and has set up numerous festivals, including Peace to the Caucasus, The Mikkeli in Finland, The Red Sea in Eilat, The Kirov-Philharmonia in London, and The Rotterdam Philharmonic-Gergiev Festival. The one festival of all however that probably lies closest to his heart is the St Petersburg’s annual “Stars of the White Nights Festival” which he set up in 1994 and of which he is Artistic Director. Born to Ossetian parents in Moscow in 1953 and raised in the Caucasus, Valery Gergiev studied music in the Leningrad Conservatory under Ilya Musin. Having trained as a pianist at first, at the age of 23 he was given his first passport to go to Berlin for the Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition and two years later took up a conducting post at the Kirov - his family. The ‘family’ is constantly on his mind and, musically speaking, all that he does leads back to the same recurring theme of how the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet, to give the Kirov companies their proper name, will benefit. Valery Gergiev was elected Artistic Director of the Mariinsky opera company in 1988 at the age of 35, and in 1996 the Russian government gave him complete control over the orchestra, opera and ballet. His ‘mission’ has been to make the Mariinsky companies the best in the world. He is considered today as one of the leading conductors, in demand at virtually all the world’s best orchestras and opera companies; but his main motivation always remains the same: to give people pride in St Petersburg and the Mariinsky (he sees their paths as inextricably intertwined). In 1998, his ‘drive’ was rewarded when he received the first ever Philips Excellence in Arts Award: for people or companies who match the Philips Electronics commitment to ‘Make Things Better’. The $100,000 award was split by Gergiev between the Metropolitan Opera, the Mariinsky Opera and the Valery Gergiev Music Academy in his home town in Ossetia. Later in the year, Philips sponsored the Mariinsky tour of China, an historic first, with a performance in the Great Hall in Beijing, broadcast to 50 million people, in the presence of President Jiang Zemin. It was the first time in 40 years that a Russian orchestra had been in China. Other awards have included the Dmitri Shostakovich Award, People Artist of the Year Award and The Golden Mask Award – the most prestigious theatre prize in Russia. He was also awarded the Evening Standard Special Prize, The Independent newspaper made him Musician of the Year and Musical America honoured him as Conductor of the Year. To further the ‘mission’ a sophisticated international support network has been created, with Gergiev directly involved. The network ensures that the international profile of the Mariinsky is maintained and helps to raise corporate sponsorship, buy new instruments and equipment, create educational exchanges and even sponsor touring productions. In the UK, Friends of the Kirov, founded in 1993, whose president is Placido Domingo, holds numerous fund raising galas usually hosted by members of the Royal family, including Prince Charles, the most recent of which was at Buckingham Palace in April 1999. In 1998 they sponsored a new production of La forza del destino, filmed for global release. In the USA, Canada, Finland and Japan there are “friends” organisations with similar activities. This “international business” network, what with Gergiev and the orchestras continual travelling, has lead to the reputation of what a journalist called, ‘the world’s first global orchestra’. At the Mariinsky, Gergiev has brought on a number of world-class singers such as Galina Gorchakova and Olga Borodina. But his greatest musical achievement has been to expand and rejuvenate the repertoire, particularly that of the Russian composers, making his mark as no other late 20th-century conductor has done. He is devoted to Prokofiev, who he feels has ‘been neglected’. Gergiev even founded a Prokofiev festival to celebrate the centenary of Prokofiev’s birthday in 1991. In the 1999 White Nights Festival, Gergiev staged a new production of Semyon Kotko, an opera that Stalin had considered ideologically dubious and therefore rarely performed. Gergiev wanted to demonstrate that the music could override the political content, and underlined that such works are part of Russian history. The audience loved it. Gergiev then introduced the production to other audiences such as those at the Weiner Konzerthaus in Vienna and the Royal Opera House in London to similar great success. Important operas by Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich as well as Stravinsky’s ballets are now in the company’s repertoire. Now that Gergiev has rebuilt the orchestra and re-established its reputation, he has begun to introduce Western works. Two of his biggest achievements were the 1997 staging of Parsifal, given in Russia for the first time in 80 years, and his debut at the Metropolitan Opera with a new production of Otello with Placido Domingo. Over the years, the Kirov/ Mariinsky has toured across the world to China, Israel, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy and Japan as well as a 5-week season at the newly refurbished Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in June 2000. This was not only the Kirov Orchestra and Ballet’s first ever joint residency outside St Petersburg but it was also the largest season they had ever undertaken, performing 9 productions with a cast of over 500 artists. In 2001 Gergiev brought the unique sound and performance of the Kirov to France, Austria, Spain, Germany, Australia and returned once more to Covent Garden to celebrate the Verdi centenary with opera productions of Un Ballo in Maschera, Macbeth, La Forza del Destino, Aida, Otello, Don Carlos as well as a performance of Verdi’s Requiem. In February 2002, Gergiev led the Mariinsky opera, orchestra and ballet for the first time at the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C., with opera productions of Khovanshchina, Verdi's Macbeth and the ballets, Sleeping Beauty and Jewels. In 2003, there will be a White Nights Special to celebrate 300 years of the founding of St Petersburg, which is the same year when Valery Gergiev will celebrate his 50th birthday. Gergiev is currently working on major plans for the redevelopment and restoration of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. In this, the St Petersburg tercentenary anniversary year, he is also creating an extended three-month ‘Stars of the White Nights’ Festival, running throughout May, June and July. Highlights will include the Mariinsky’s first complete Ring Cycle for nearly a century and a new production of Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress, as well as visits from many of the worlds leading artists and ensembles, including the Vienna Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, the Met Orchestra, The Royal Ballet, Swedish Radio Orchestra and Chorus and the World Orchestra for Peace. The Philips-Mariinsky partnership has acted like a mirror on the company - almost all the major projects have been recorded in either audio and/or video. The recordings include complete operas of Maid of Pskov, Khovanshchina, War and Peace, Sadko, Prince Igor, The Queen of Spades, Ruslan and Lyudmila, Iolanta, Fiery Angel (Gramophone Award Winner for Best Opera Recording 1996), La Forza del destino, (the first recording of the original, St Petersburg version), The Gambler, Mazeppa, Kashchei the Immortal, Betrothal in a Monastery, Boris Godunov and the Tsars Bride. Gergiev’s most recent opera recordings are Semyon Kotko and the Love for Three Oranges. Gergiev’s strengths as a man of the theatre are evident in these recordings but his orchestral work is no less important. Releases of orchestral music include Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, coupled with Scriabin’s Poem of Ectasy (released in July 2001); Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 (his debut recording with the Vienna Philharmonic); Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.2; the complete cycle of Prokofiev piano concertos with Alexander Toradze; Shostakovich’s Symphony No.8; Tchaikovsky and Verdi arias with Galina Gorchakova, and Mussorgsky’s songs and Dances of Death with Dmitri Hvrostovsky - further artist collaboration discs include a Live Proms recording of the Grieg and Chopin Piano Concertos with Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Gergiev's complete ballets are Tschaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty, The Firebird and The Nutcracaker. Scheherazade was released in the fall of 2002 alongside the violin concertos of Tchaikovsky and Myaskovsky performed by Vadim Repin. New releases for 2003 include Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky and Shostakovich Symphony No 7.