The Golden Cockerel, The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Scheherazade, or the musical epos Ilya Muromets in the 2022-23 season — anyone who is familiar with our Music director will know all too well that musical storytelling is where he feels at home. Anyone who wasn't yet aware of this fact will get the chance to find out during this concert, during which Alain Altinoglu will be performing two of the most beloved scores by Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.

The programme will transport us all the way to the land of bears: a plaything of political despotism for many centuries, but a fertile feeding ground for artistic inventiveness all the same. With Glinka's overture from Ruslan and Lyudmila, the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra will be going all the way back to the first Russian steps into the world of classical music. Afterwards, Sergei Babayan will be starring in the Third Piano Concerto by Prokofiev, a competition classic.