The 53rd Ljubljana Summer Festival opened its doors on Monday. A total of 62 events of different genres ranging from opera, ballet, and dance performances to symphonic, chamber, vocal, ethno, jazz and Latino concerts, exhibitions, artistic communities will take place. For the second consecutive year people will be able to enjoy "Cinema Beneath the Stars" an open-air cinema at Ljubljana Castle. The festival is organised by Ljubljana Festival and will take place between 4 July and 18 August.
Special mention must be made in connection to the appearance of the famous Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, which will present its new production of Prokofiev's opera "The Fiery Angel". A concert of operatic arias will be given by Argentinean tenor Marcelo Álvarez. Three excellent orchestras will pay their tribute to the memory of the great composer Dmitri Shostakovich by performing three of his symphonies. The Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra with Georg Pehlivanian will perform Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. The Bolshoi Orchestra with Aleksander Vedernik will perform Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony and Valery Gergiev with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra from St. Petersburg, which will perform Shostakovich's 10th Symphony. The outstanding violinist Vadim Repin will appear with the Vilnius Festival Orchestra, while Rudolf Buchbinder, who is among the top virtuoso pianists of our time, will appear with the Orchestra from Padova and Venice, conducted by Anton Nanut. On stage one must mention the opera "The Tales of Hoffmann" with Janez Lotrič in the title role, ballet performances "Lacrimae - Tears" by Edward Clug and "Zorba the Greek" - both to be performed by the Slovenian National Theatre from Maribor, the ballet "Touch" to be performed by the Austin Ballet from Texas, and the musical "Chicago" to be performed by the Comedy Theatre from Zagreb.
The Ljubljana Summer Festival programme will also include a series of chamber music concerts, the Eighth International Artistic Community (Tomo Vran will be the selector), three concerts produced by Brane Rončel (the Manhattan Transfer quartet, Afro-Cuban and jazz music performed by the group The Conga Kings, and an evening of Cuban music with David Calzado and his project Charanga Habanera), and a constant feature of the Festival - Vlado Kreslin's concert. This year's summer festival will include 81 events of different genres altogether, more than 3,000 artists from 21 countries will appear, while the events themselves will be held at 15 different locations. Even before the Ljubljana Summer Festival begins, the Ljubljana Festival will be organising a jubilee 20th edition of the Slovenian Music Festival (20-23 June), preparing the project "La Vie en Rose - Days of Chanson" (6-28 June) in a co-production with the Café Teater, and a number of other concerts and exhibitions at the Ljubljana Castle. The Ljubljana Summer Festival will conclude with concerts by the group Šukar on their 15th anniversary (25 August), Slovenian Pop Song 2005 (4 September), and the group Terra Folk with the Slovenian RTV Symphony Orchestra (13 September).
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