High profile productions, including the Sydney Theatre Company production of The Maids, starring Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett, as well as the Bolshoi Ballet, Opera, Orchestra and Chorus repertory engagement, prompted the spike in sales this year. With 6,588 tickets sold, it marked the highest box-office figures for any single ticket on-sale date in the history of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The festival, which runs July 7-Aug. 16, will be held in six venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus, featuring performances from 11 countries.
Following its 2012 production of Uncle Vanya, Sydney Theatre Company will return to the festival with the U.S. premiere of Benedict Andrews' production of Jean Genet's play The Maids, featuring Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert, joined by Elizabeth Debicki. The production, which runs Aug. 6-16, will feature a new translation by Andrews and STC artistic director Andrew Upton.
In their first appearance at the Lincoln Center Festival since 2000, the Bolshoi Ballet will present three evening-length ballets in the David H. Koch Theater: Alexei Fadeyechev's 1999 production of Don Quixote, based on choreography by Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky; Yuri Grigorovich's 2001 production of Swan Lake; and Grigorovich's 1968 production of Spartacus. The performances run July 15-27, featuring dancers Svetlana Zakharova, David Hallberg, Maria Alexandrova, Ekaterina Shipulina, Vladislav Lantratov, Olga Smirnova, Ekaterina Krysanova, Anna Nikulina, Maria Vinogradova, Mikhail Lobukhin, Ruslan Skvortsov, Artem Ovcharenko and Denis Rodkin.
The Bolshoi Opera, Orchestra and Chorus will perform for the first time in New York, giving two performances of a concert version of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride in Avery Fisher Hall July 12-13. The performances will feature Vyacheslav Pochapsky, Stanislav Trofimov, Anna Aglatova, Dinara Alieva, Elchin Azizov, Maksim Yasnopolsky, Oleg Tsybulko, Mikhail Gubsky, Boris Rudak, Svetlana Shilova, Elena Manistina, Stanislav Mostovoy, Marat Gali, Irina Udalova, Elena Novak, Pavel Valuzhin, Anna Matsey and Sophia Kriklenko. Read more about the festival programming here.
