Tucked away through a shabby, jaded courtyard off Ulitsa
Mayakovskaya is one of St Petersburg's most precious gems.
For here is the prestigious St Petersburg State Academic Ballet Theater --
housed in a yellow, crumbling building that has seen better times.
Within these walls, some of today's finest dancers are being trained under the
fatherly eye of theater director Askold Makarov, in his time one of the most
talented dancers at the Kirov (Mariinsky) Ballet.
Variations on a musical theme
"For my part, I expected nothing from any English composer... But
when I heard the Variations (which had not attracted me to the concert) I sat
up and said `Whew!' I knew we had got it at last."
Thus wrote George Bernard Shaw, referring to Edward Elgar's Variations on an
Original Theme ("Enigma")
The musical romance of the White Nights
At a season when lovers stroll the embankments at two in the
morning to watch the drawbridges stretch up into the twilight sky, St
Petersburg would be incomplete without romantic music, which the Stars of the
White Nights Festival provides in full measure.
St Petersburg architectural history set in stone
Peter the Great knew what it would take to create his Venice of
the North. He believed, and perhaps rightly, that St Petersburg would be
nothing if it was not built in stone by master craftsmen fit to realize his
monumental vision.
FILMS
The mammoth film festival to end all festivals
St Petersburg's international Festival of Festivals has something
for everyone who enjoys traveling to other worlds by sitting in a darkened room
watching a wall.
In fact the seven-day, 109-film event involves the screening of more movies
than you could shake a stick at -- let alone watch.
MUSIC
Radio Fuzz
On June 21, St Petersburg will join the International Day of
Music for the first time by staging a massive rock festival. About 20 local
acts will celebrate the summer solstice during an 11-hour event called "Radio
Fuzz."
