Start of ticket sales for Dresden Opera Ball in St. Petersburg announced at SPIEF

Discussions have been held at SPIEF on holding the Dresden Opera Ball in St. Petersburg. Attending the meeting were Konstantin Sukhenko, Chairman of St. Petersburg’s Culture Committee, and Professor Hans-Joachim Frey, Artistic Director of the Dresden Opera Ball. The meeting was organized by Special Representative for International Cultural Cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoy, who announced the start of ticket sales.

«The Dresden Opera Ball is crucial for building cultural bridges between Germany and Russia, and between the twin cities of St. Petersburg and Dresden. The ties between our countries and cities have remained strong to this day. We want to recapture the bygone spirit of tsarist times, when people went to Russia in the summer to attend summer balls, and to Germany — Dresden — in the winter to attend winter balls. We want to bring people together and make them accustomed to attending cultural events and gala concerts. We want to build our very own bridge between communities and unite them. We want to cultivate a rich cultural life,» said Hans-Joachim Frey.

The Dresden Opera Ball is one of Europe’s biggest society events in music, and will take place in St. Petersburg for the first time on 31 August at the Mikhailovsky Theatre and the Shostakovich St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonia. A red carpet will be laid out for guests on Ploshchad Iskusstv.

The gala concert will be conducted by Massimo Zanetti, and will feature German opera star Nadja Michael, American tenor Stephen Gould, Honoured Artist of Russia Albina Shagimuratova, and People’s Artists of Russia Igor Butman and Sergei Roldugin. The debutantes will dance the Leningrad Waltz and the Dresden Waltz.

The Dresden Opera Ball was first held in 1925, and continued until the start of the Second World War. In 2006, the ball was revived to mark the 800-year anniversary of the founding of Dresden. It now takes place annually.