Within the framework of France’s participation in the celebration of the anniversary of the Northern Capital, major French officials will come to the city. According to Consul General of France in St. Petersburg, Stephan Visconti, Bertrand Delanoe, Mayor of Paris, visited St. Petersburg on May 11-12, and Mayor of Bordeau, Allain Juppe, is also planning to visit the city. On May 30-31, President of the Republic of France, Jacques Chirac, will come to the meeting of President Vladimir Putin and heads of the EU countries. Jacques Chirac will also visit the Polar Academy. From June 28 to June 30, Jean Pierre Raffarin, Prime-Minister of France will open the European Center of the Enlightenment Epoch - Voltaire’s Library in the Russian national Library. Official visitors from France will attend more than 40 anniversary events.

The cultural program includes P.I. Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin staged by the French Chatelet Theater and Mariinsky Theater on May 11. The next day, a retrospective exhibition of the works of the artist Nicholas de Stael, son of the last commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress, was opened in the Hermitage. The colloquium “Dialogue between St. Petersburg and Paris: from Diderot to our epoch” took place from May 12 to May 14 in the State University of St. Petersburg. Among those who attended the closing ceremony of this colloquium was Gerard Depardier who read fragments from the works of Pushkin and Dostoevsky. On May 21, it will be possible to hear a concert of the Champs-Elysees orchestra in the Smolny Cathedral, while on June 1, Hector Berliose’s dramatic symphony Romeo and Juliet will be performed in the Mariinsky Theater by the orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev.

France has prepared various presents to the city on the Neva for this summer: opening of the granite fountain Swan lake in Guayotte Business Center in Petrogradskaya Side (on June 21), as well as a sailing ship and three training ships of the French Navy staying at the Neva “to exchange seamen” (from June 13 to June 17).

News source: www.300online.ru
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