Throughout his life, the Ossetian conductor Valery Gergiev, who turned 70 in May this year, has worked on his own ubiquity. Even though he never completely achieved the miracle of conducting in two places at the same time, he was at work almost every day and sometimes managed two concerts a day. So Gergiev raced across the continents, preferring to play in St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, which he has led as director since 1996 and has made into one of the great theaters. He toured the world with the Mariinsky musicians, rushing from triumph to triumph. But that didn’t stop him from conducting at the Met and La Scala, at the festivals in Salzburg, Bayreuth and Baden-Baden. At the same time he was, in turn, orchestra director in Rotterdam, London and Munich. Gergiev was omnipresent, every director wanted to have him, every audience wanted to hear him. His sensually passionate style, averse to all intellectual speculation, captivated the world.
Valery Gergiev will also become head of the Moscow Bolshoi Theater – Culture
