Ljubljana Festival 2010

The Ljubljana Festival, with its long history and tradition of presenting premier artistic events, contributes significantly to the cultural life of Ljubljana. Its programme of events features renowned artists from home and abroad, including some of the world's biggest names in music, dance and theatre.

This year, the Ljubljana Festival will open with a concert featuring Gustav Mahler's majestic Symphony No. 2, performed by the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert will mark the 150th birth anniversary of Gustav Mahler, who lived in worked in Ljubljana in the 1881-1882 season.

Other highlights of the festival will include ballet performances by Saint Petersburg's State Academic Ballet Theatre of Boris Eifman, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, and the ensembles of the Slovenian National Opera and Ballet Theatres of Ljubljana and Maribor. The operatic high spot of the festival will be Richard Strauss's opera The Woman without a Shadow, performed by Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre under the conduction of Valery Gergiev.

Valery Gergiev will also conduct Mariinsky Theatre's concert with the pianist Denis Matsuev and the London Symphony Orchestra with the violinist Sergey Khachatryan as the soloist. The Munich Philharmonic will perform Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation, and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra George Frideric Handel's Messiah.