On November 5, the Buryat Opera and Ballet Theatre will host the final event of the Ballet Festival named after People's Artist of the USSR Larisa Sakhyanova and People's Artist of the RSFSR Pyotr Abasheev: a grand gala concert of ballet stars.

Among the invited stars, there are principal dancers of the ballet company of the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre Anna Fedosova and Yuri Kudriavtsev. They will perform two pieces: Pas de Deux from the ballet Catarina ou la Fille du Bandit by Cesare Pugni and the Balcony Scene from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet (we add that Anna and Yuri will dance in the same ballets in Krasnoyarsk in November).

The gala concert programme also includes performances by a principal dancer of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre Ivan Oskorbin, the principal dancer of the Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Syryal Afanasyev, dancers of the Buryat Opera and Ballet Theatre and State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre of Mongolia, as well as students of the Buryat Choreography College.

The classical dance festival is held once every five years; it’s dedicated to the founders of the ballet of Buryatia - Larisa Sakhyanova and Pyotr Abasheev (a sculpture of this ballet couple graces the square in front of the Theatre in Ulan-Ude). In 2023, the festival is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Buryatia, it’ll be held from November 1 to 5 and supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Government and the head of Buryatia, the Ministry of Culture of Buryatia.

The festival programme includes four ballet shows: Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote, Beauty of the Angara River (the landmark show of the Buryat Theatre), Swan Lake performed as well by stars of the Bolshoi, Mariinsky Theatre, the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre, the Buryat and Mongolian opera and ballet theatres.