Renowned Russian conductor Valery Gergiev will take the baton of the Marriinsky Theatre Orchestra and its chorus to raise the curtain of the Ninth Beijing Music Festival tonight at Poly Theatre.

The Russian conductor, Russian orchestra, Russian singers and choir and an all-Russian program will offer a glamorous celebration of the Year of Russia in China, which tops the four major themes of this year's Beijing Music Festival.

The other three are the Year of Italy in China, Mozart's 250th birthday anniversary and Shostakovich's 100th birthday anniversary.

The opening piece is Shostakovich's historic "Festival Overture."

Composed for the celebration of the 37th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, this work premiered on November 6, 1954, performed by the Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, under the direction of Alexander Melik-Pashayev.

Other pieces to be featured tonight include Rimsky-Korsakov's aria from the opera "Snow Maiden" and his aria from "Tsar's Bride," Mussorgsky's Coronation scene from "Boris Godunov," Tchaikovsky's "Romeo Juliet Fantasy-Overture" and Glinka's "Ruslan Ludmill Overture."

Gergiev, however, will not stop his crusade during the music fest. Tomorrow, he will conduct the orchestra to play the concert version of Shostakovich's opera "The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" at the Poly Theatre.

This is among the series to mark the 100th anniversary of the Russian composer's birth.

"The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District," Shostakovich's second opera, was referred to by the composer as a "tragedy-satire."

Written between 1930 and 1932, the four-act, 150-minute opera is based on a short story by Nikolay Leskov. Shostakovich and his co-librettist, Alexander Preis, made alterations to the original story, all designed to humanize the central character of Katerina, portrayed in the original story as a brutal and self-serving woman.

The composer's use of music greatly strengthened his interpretation of Katerina as a sympathetic character driven to crime by boredom and despair by contrasting the lyrical music written for her with raw, grotesque, discordant music written for those around her.

The opera premiered on January 22, 1934, in Leningrad at the Maliy Operniy Teatr. Two days later, the opera was produced by the Stanislavsky-Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre in Moscow, which made some cuts and alterations and billed it as "Katerina Izmaylova." Although the productions were significantly different in approach, both enjoyed great success.

"Although a concert version without settings and costumes, Shostakovich's score remains powerful, dramatic and demanding, when played by Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under the baton of Gergiev," said Yu Long, artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival.

The orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre enjoys a long and distinguished history as one of the oldest musical institutions in Russia. In 1988, Valery Gergiev was elected artistic director of the opera company, and in 1996, the Russian Government appointed him as artistic and general director of the Mariinsky Theatre. Under Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky Theatre has forged important relationships with the worlds' greatest opera houses.

Valery Gergiev has developed a fan-base in China since he took the orchestra for its debut tour of China and joined the First Beijing Music Festival.

Now, eight years later, Gergiev, with his Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, has returned.

(China Daily October 2, 2006)