PRAGUE, Dec. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- The 61st Prague Spring international music festival will offer about 46 concerts in 2006, by about one fifth fewer than in previous years, as organizers felt that the event reached its limits in terms of quantity this spring, Prague Spring director Roman Belor said Monday.

    He said the planned concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta will probably be the evermost expensive concert in the festival's history.

    The sale of tickets for the Prague Spring 2006 event, which will traditionally start on the anniversary of Czech composer Bedrich Smetana's death on May 12, was launched on Monday.

    In view of the rising costs, the lower number of concerts will not mean a lower budget next year, Belor said.

    Compared to the Salzburg festival, for example, Prague Spring remains a low-budget event. Nevertheless, it is clearly the most expensive in the Czech Republic, Belor said.

    The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will re-appear at Prague Spring after almost 40 years. Mehta, too, performed in Prague in the 1970s. They will jointly contribute to the celebrations of W.A.Mozart's 250th birth anniversary.

    Further stars to appear at the festival include soprano Edita Gruber, the Russian national orchestra led by Mikhail Pletnev, pianists Emanuel Ax and Garrick Ohlsson, conductors Maxim Shostakovich and Peter Eoetvoes, and Charles Neidich, a basset clarinet virtuoso.

    The most renowned Czech stars include conductors Jiri Kout, Jiri Belohlavek and Zdenek Macal, soprano Eva Urbanova and mezzosoprano Dagmar Peckova who will give a joint concert.

    The series of theater performances that is annually a part of Prague Spring, will include Mozart's Don Giovanni, Bohuslav Martinu's Greek Passion and the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's opera Candide.

    About 20 concerts will be not only broadcast, live or recorded,by public Czech Radio but they will also appear on the European Broacasting Union (EBU) network. Enditem¡¡