Moscow and St Petersburg will begin to celebrate the great Russian composer at the beginning of the new year. Thus, on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre there are performances of The Tale of Tsar Saltan (the 4th of January at 12:00 and 19:00, the 5th and 6th of January) and on Historic Stage — the performances of The Tsar’s Bride (the 20th and 21st of February), and the Mariinsky playbill has The Tale of Tsar Saltan (the 3rd of January at 13:00 and 19:00), Christmas Eve (the 7th of January at 12:00 and 19:00), May Night (the 10th of January), as well as The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (the 16th and 23rd of January).

On the 23rd-25th of February, the Mariinsky Theatre will perform at the Bolshoi on its Historic Stage. The first to be shown is The Maid of Pskov with the prologue The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga, Christmas Eve is performed on the 24th of February, and on the 25th of February — The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (production and set by Alexei Stepanyuk, costumes by Irina Cherednikova). Valery Gergiev will conduct all three performances.

On the 27th, 28th and 29th of February, the troupe of The Bolshoi Theatre will present The Tsar’s Bride on the historical stage of the Mariinsky, a legendary performance from the treasure trove of its repertoire, staged in the mid-twentieth century with a luxurious design by Fyodor Fedorovsky, restored in 2014 by director Yulia Pevzner. Alona Pikalova acted as set designer and Elena Zaitseva was costume designer.

Throughout the entire theatrical season, Moscow and St Petersburg audiences can expect to see other masterpieces by Rimsky-Korsakov: Sadko, The Golden Cockerel, The Snow Maiden, Kashchei the Immortal and Mozart and Salieri. 

One of the most important events celebrating Rimsky-Korsakov will be the performance of both theatres in Tikhvin — another in a series of traditional musical honour gifts from the Mariinsky Theatre to the great Russian composers in their hometowns. In previous seasons, artists of the Mariinsky Opera and Orchestra under the direction of Valery Gergiev have already performed works by Rimsky-Korsakov in Tikhvin, as well as by Stravinsky in Oranienbaum, Mussorgsky in Pskov, Tchaikovsky in Votkinsk, Glinka in Smolensk and Rachmaninov in Veliky Novgorod.

The 180th anniversary of Rimsky-Korsakov will also be widely celebrated on the Primorsky stage of the Mariinsky Theatre in Vladivostok and on the stages of the branch in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania in Vladikavkaz.