Journey to St Petersburg

After arriving in St. Petersburg, I was greeted at the hotel by my host for the auditions, Peter Fleming and Christoph Meyer, Generalintendant of Deutsche Opera am Rein. Peter took us to the Mariinsky and suggested a restaurant for dinner. Teatro was the restaurant.



We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed our time getting to know each other and our respective companies.

Deutsche Opera am Rein is a two city opera and ballet company producing in Düsseldorf and in Duisburg. We then enjoyed a nightcap at the Irish pub across the street from the Mariinsky, a hangout for the artists and crew.

The next day we were joined by Audrone Juozauskaite from the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet and Michael Barobeck from Opera Graz. We walked over to the audition space which lead us past the Moika Palace where Rasputin was murdered!


Rusputin murdered at The Moika Palace

The auditions were in a beautiful Palace-turned-centre for the study of architecture. All in all not a bad day of auditions.


St Petersburg Audition Hall


Audition hall door

After the auditions we had some time to ourselves before we all met for the St. Petersburg canal boat cruise. We had our own boat and had an amazing trip! (thanks Aleksei for the Vodka!)


Canal boat cruise


The Mariinsky from the canal boat cruise


The Peter and Paul Fortress


The ship that started the Russian revolution

All of us the enjoyed another nightcap at the Irish pub.

~ Tom Wright, Director of Artistic Planning