The Ljubljana Summer Festival, with its long history and tradition of presenting premier artistic events, contributes significantly to the cultural life of Ljubljana.

06 Jul 2010 - 26 Aug 2010

Križanke summer theatre,  Ljubljana Castle,  Cankarjev dom cultural and congress centre, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, other venues

The Ljubljana Festival, with its long history and tradition of presenting premier artistic events, contributes significantly to the cultural life of Ljubljana. Each summer, its wide and varied programme of events includes from 70 to 80 concerts and opera and ballet performances attended by around 80,000 people from home and abroad.

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. The programme of events will be rounded off with Tomaž Pandur's production of Hamlet, featuring Blanca Portillo in the title role.

For more information and the programme of events visit the Ljubljana Festival's official website.