Valery Gergiev

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (Ossetic: Гергиты Абисалы фырт Валери; Russian: Вале́рий Абиса́лович Ге́ргиев; b. 1953) is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director of the Mariinsky Theatre and also associated with the Metropolitan Opera, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Gergiev was born in Moscow on 2 May 1953 to Ossetian parents and raised in Vladikavkaz in their native North Ossetia in the Caucasus. No child prodigy, he began to learn the piano at secondary school and then went to St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) to study at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

In 1978, he became assistant conductor at the Kirov Opera (now the Mariinsky Opera) under Yuri Temirkanov, where he made his debut conducting Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace. He was chief conductor of the Armenian State Orchestra from 1981 until 1985.

In 1991, for the first time, Gergiev conducted a western European opera company with the Bavarian State Opera in a performance of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in Munich. In the same year he made his American début, performing War and Peace with the San Francisco Opera. Since then he has conducted both operatic and orchestral repertoire across the world.

Gergiev is associated with numerous music festivals, including the White Nights festival in Saint Petersburg.

He became chief conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky in 1988, and overall director of the company, by then renamed the Mariinski, appointed by the Russian government, in 1996. In 1995 he became principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 1997, principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Gergiev is particularly renowned for his passionate, almost abrasive, conducting style, and tendency to grunt at the podium. He is a driven conductor who produces his best in pieces of great drama. He claims his favourite composer to be Sergei Prokofiev in his DVD recording of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite.

Gergiev has also been a consistent supporter of peace in the Caucasus, particularly in the conflict between the Georgian central government and South Ossetia.

In 2003 he initiated and conducted at the Mariinsky Theatre the first complete cycle of Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung to be performed in Russia for over 90 years. The production's design and concept reflects many aspects of Ossetian culture. Gergiev will conduct this production abroad in Cardiff in 2006 (at the Wales Millennium Centre), in Costa Mesa, California (October 2006, Orange County Performing Arts Center) and New York in 2007.

In 2005 he was named as the 15th Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, taking over from Sir Colin Davis as of January 1, 2007.

Gergiev has made a point of recording Russian composers, in both opera and symphonic works, including Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Prokofiev, Shostakovich. Most of his recordings are with the Kirov Orchestra, while he has also recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic. A recent undertaking, the complete Prokofiev Symphonies, is with the LSO.

He was awarded the 2006 Polar Music Prize together with Led Zeppelin.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

List of conductors

Preceded by: David Khanjian	Principal Conductor, Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra 1981–1985	Succeeded by: Rafael Mangassarian
Preceded by: Yuri Temirkanov	Principal Conductor and Music Director, Kirov Opera 1988–present	Succeeded by: incumbent
Preceded by: Jeffrey Tate	Principal Conductor, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra 1995–present	Succeeded by: incumbent
Preceded by: Sir Colin Davis	Principal Conductor (Designate), London Symphony Orchestra 2007–present	Succeeded by: none