In honor of the City Day, an opera ball was held at Palace Square

The tradition of celebrating the Foundation Day of St. Petersburg with classical art concerts on Palace Square every year finds more and more reasons to gain a foothold in the cultural calendar of the Northern capital.

On May 24, 2015, the graceful decoration again grew at the walls of the Winter Palace: an impromptu ballroom, shimmering with crystal of a luxurious chandelier, solemn candelabra and sconces. About one and a half thousand crystalline lenses were used for their manufacture, due to which both the sunlight and the spotlights were played in a very special way.

Dmitry Hvorostovsky

Thanks to the Mikhailovsky Theater Symphony Orchestra and maestro Mikhail Tatarnikov, one of the best conductors in St. Petersburg, two hours above the city center sounded light, refined and inspired music. The melodies of Rossini, Verdi and Dvořák alternated with the arias from the operettas Kalman, Lehar and Strauss. They were complemented by the dramatic chords of Saint-Saens and the lyric songs of the natives of Naples.

Valentina Nafornitsa

All the soloists who appeared on the stage near Zimniy that evening are world famous, but, above all, they represent the Russian opera school. Baritone Dmitry Hvorostovsky, soprano Valentina Nafornitsa, Ekaterina Lekhina and Anna Aglatova, mezzo-soprano, Petersburger Olesya Petrova, tenors Alexey Dolgov, Dmitry Korchak, Dmitro Popov and rising star of the Mikhailovsky Theater Evgeny Akhmedov created an amazing kaleidoscope of all shades of classical vocals.

A special guest of the program is Alena Baeva. Her talent and virtuoso violin technique are recognized by many famous conductors of the world.

Alena Baeva

The atmosphere of the ball was created by artists of the ballet companies of St. Petersburg - Theater named after Jacobson, Mikhailovsky Theater and others. The piquancy and dynamism of the program was made by dancers from Bad Boys of Dance (USA). With brilliance and humor, they coped with the difficult task of the director Ekaterina Galanova: to create a theatrical dance cocktail to the music of Saint-Saens and Rossini in the corporate style of this team - a whirlwind dance fusion with elements of acrobatics and rock and roll.

The gala concert "Classics at the Palace" invited all Petersburgers and guests of the city to the open-air concert hall for free and gathered more than 20 thousand spectators. Two and a half thousand stalls were installed on the square: they accommodated a little more than a tenth of all connoisseurs of classical art, but a limited number of seats did not bother the audience. All two hours while the concert was on, applause sounded in the square.

At the same time, 100 TV channel broadcasted the show, expanding the audience of the festive concert to hundreds of thousands of spectators.

The project was implemented on the initiative of the Government of St. Petersburg with the support of the Committee on Culture of St. Petersburg.