Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (Valery Gergiev) |

Valery Gergiev

Valery Gergiev was born in 1953 in Moscow, grew up in the capital of North Ossetia, Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz), where he studied piano and conducting at a music school. In 1977 he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory, conducting class under prof. I.A. Musina. As a student, he won the All-Union Conducting Competition in Moscow (1976) and won the 1977nd prize at the Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in West Berlin (XNUMX). After graduating from the conservatory, he was invited to the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater. Kirov (now the Mariinsky Theatre) as an assistant to Y. Temirkanov and made his debut with the play “War and Peace” by Prokofiev. Already in those years, Gergiev’s art of conducting was characterized by qualities that later brought him worldwide fame: vivid emotionality, scale of ideas, depth and thoughtfulness of reading the score.

In 1981-85. V. Gergiev led the State Symphony Orchestra of Armenia. In 1988 he was elected chief conductor and artistic director of the opera company of the Kirov (Mariinsky) Theatre. Already in the first years of his activity, V. Gergiev held several large-scale actions, thanks to which the prestige of the theater in our country and abroad increased significantly. These are festivals dedicated to the 150th anniversary of M. Mussorgsky (1989), P. Tchaikovsky (1990), N. Rimsky-Korsakov (1994), the 100th anniversary of S. Prokofiev (1991), tours in Germany (1989), USA (1992) ) and a number of other promotions.

In 1996, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, V. Gergiev became artistic director and director of the Mariinsky Theater. Thanks to his outstanding skill, fantastic energy and efficiency, talent as an organizer, the theater is rightfully one of the leading musical theaters on the planet. The troupe successfully tours the world’s most prestigious stages (the last tour took place in July-August 2009: the ballet troupe performed in Amsterdam, and the opera company showed a new version of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in London). According to the results of 2008, the theater orchestra entered the top twenty best orchestras in the world according to the rating of Gramophon magazine.

On the initiative of V. Gergiev, the Academy of Young Singers, the Youth Orchestra, several instrumental ensembles were created in the theater. Through the efforts of the maestro, the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theater was built in 2006, which significantly expanded the repertory capabilities of the opera troupe and orchestra.

V. Gergiev successfully combines his activities at the Mariinsky Theater with the leadership of the London Symphony (chief conductor since January 2007) and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestras (chief guest conductor from 1995 to 2008). He regularly tours with such illustrious ensembles as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (UK), the National Orchestra of France, the Swedish Radio Orchestra, the San Francisco, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Minnesota Symphony Orchestras. , Montreal, Birmingham and many others. His performances at the Salzburg Festival, the London Royal Opera Covent Garden, Milan’s La Scala, the New York Metropolitan Opera (where he served as Principal Guest Conductor from 1997 to 2002) and other theaters always become major events and attract the attention of the public and the press. . A few years ago, Valery Gergiev took up the duties of a guest conductor at the Paris Opera.

Valery Gergiev has repeatedly conducted the World Orchestra for Peace, founded in 1995 by Sir Georg Solti, and in 2008 he led the United Russian Symphony Orchestra at the III Festival of World Symphony Orchestras in Moscow.

V. Gergiev is the organizer and artistic director of many music festivals, including “Stars of the White Nights”, included by the authoritative Austrian magazine Festspiele Magazin in the top ten festivals in the world (St. Petersburg), the Moscow Easter Festival, the Valery Gergiev Festival (Rotterdam), the Festival in Mikkeli (Finland), Kirov Philharmonic (London), Red Sea Festival (Eilat), For Peace in the Caucasus (Vladikavkaz), Mstislav Rostropovich (Samara), New Horizons (St. Petersburg).

The repertoire of V. Gergiev and the groups led by him is truly limitless. On the stage of the Mariinsky Theater he staged dozens of operas by Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, R. Strauss, Glinka, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and many other luminaries of world classics. One of the greatest achievements of the maestro is the complete staging of Richard Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (2004). He also constantly turns to new or little-known scores in Russia (in 2008-2009 there were premieres of “Salome” by R. Strauss, “Jenufa” by Janacek, “King Roger” by Shimanovsky, “The Trojans” by Berlioz, “The Brothers Karamazov” by Smelkov, ” Enchanted Wanderer” Shchedrin). In his symphonic programs, covering almost the entire orchestral literature, the maestro in recent years has been focusing on the works of composers of the late XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries: Mahler, Debussy, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich.

One of the cornerstones of Gergiev’s activity is the propaganda of modern music, the work of living composers. The conductor’s repertoire includes works by R. Shchedrin, S. Gubaidulina, B. Tishchenko, A. Rybnikov, A. Dutilleux, H. V. Henze and other of our contemporaries.

A special page in V. Gergiev’s work is associated with the Philips Classics recording company, cooperation with which allowed the conductor to create a unique anthology of recordings of Russian music and foreign music, many of which received prestigious awards from the international press.

A significant place in the life of V. Gergiev is occupied by social and charitable activities. He is a member of the Council for Culture and Art under the President of the Russian Federation. A concert of the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra conducted by the maestro on August 21, 2008 in the ruined Tskhinvali, a few days after the end of the Ossetian-Georgian armed conflict, received a truly worldwide resonance (the conductor was awarded the Gratitude of the President of the Russian Federation for this concert).

Valery Gergiev’s contribution to Russian and world culture is duly appreciated in Russia and abroad. He is a People’s Artist of Russia (1996), laureate of the State Prize of Russia for 1993 and 1999, winner of the Golden Mask as the best opera conductor (from 1996 to 2000), four times laureate of the St. awards to them. D. Shostakovich, awarded by the Y. Bashmet Foundation (1997), “Person of the Year” according to the rating of the newspaper “Musical Review” (2002, 2008). In 1994, the jury of the international organization International Classical Music Awards awarded him the title “Conductor of the Year”. In 1998, Philips Electronics presented him with a special award for his outstanding contribution to musical culture, which he donated to the development of the Academy of Young Singers of the Mariinsky Theatre. In 2002, he was awarded the Russian President’s Prize for his outstanding creative contribution to the development of art. In March 2003, the maestro was awarded the honorary title of UNESCO Artist for Peace. In 2004, Valery Gergiev received the Crystal Prize, an award from the World Economic Forum in Davos. In 2006, Valery Gergiev won the Royal Swedish Academy of Music’s Polar Music Prize (“The Polar Prize” is an analogue of the Nobel Prize in the field of music), was awarded the Japanese Record Academy Award for recording a cycle of all Prokofiev’s symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra, and won the named after Herbert von Karajan, established by the Baden-Baden Music Festival and winner of the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation Award for his great contribution to the development of cultural relations between Russia and the United States. In May 2007, Valery Gergiev was awarded the Academie du disque lyrique prize for recording Russian operas. In 2008, the Russian Biographical Society awarded V. Gergiev the “Person of the Year” award, and the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation – the “For Faith and Loyalty” award.

Valery Gergiev is a holder of the Orders of Friendship (2000), “For Services to the Fatherland” III and IV degrees (2003 and 2008), the Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Holy Blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow III degree (2003), the medal “In memory of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg”. The maestro has been awarded government awards and honorary titles from Armenia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, North and South Ossetia, Ukraine, Finland, France and Japan. He is an honorary citizen of St. Petersburg, Vladikavkaz, the French cities of Lyon and Toulouse. Honorary Professor of Moscow and St. Petersburg Universities.

In 2013, Maestro Gergiev became the first Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation.