The annual concert at the Berlin Waldbühne – one of the most appealing outdoor amphitheaters – is a special highlight of every Berliner Philharmoniker concert season. In 1993 Seiji Ozawa – Japan’s most famous conductor – joined the Berliner Philharmoniker for the Russian Night.

The evening began with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival Overture, which celebrates Christ’s Resurrection with magnificent sounds. No less powerful are the Polovtsian Dances from Borodin’s opera Prince Igor.

The programme also featured dance music, for Russia, after all, has a long and glorious ballet tradition. Tchaikovsky’s beloved The Nutcracker was first staged at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1882 and continues to be performed by ballet companies all over the world. Stravinsky’s The Firebird – the first of his three “Russian” ballets – first saw the light of day barely thirty years later in Paris in a production by Diaghilev’s famous Ballets Russes.

The two final numbers provided a lively ending to this musical midsummer night’s dream at the Waldbühne: the Radetzky March by Johann Strauss and Paul Lincke’s Berliner Luft.

DVD Picture: 4:3 – NTSC
DVD Sound: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 98 mins
Production: June 1993

Directed by Brian Large