From July 27 to August 1 one of the most prominent musical theatres on the cultural map of the country - the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre - will introduce three productions to the audience of the main national theatre of Russia - the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia.

The tour is dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the great Russian singer Dmitri Hvorostovsky (1962–2017). The large-scale federal project Big Tours supported by the Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Region A.V. Uss and the regional government made this event possible. Minister of Culture of Russia O. B. Lyubimova emphasized that it’s important that inhabitants of the multinational country know the best achievements of local and foreign theatrical art. Three of the best shows from the repertoire of the Krasnoyarsk Opera House will be performed at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia.

The tour will start on July 27 with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni on the Historical Stage. On July 29 and 30, the ballet Catarina ou La Fille du Bandit by Cesare Pugni will be presented on the Historical Stage. On July 30 and August 1, the opera Lakme by Leo Delibes will complete the tour on the New Stage.

IL DISSOLUTO PUNITO, OSSIA IL DON GIOVANNI (1787)

July 27, the Historical Stage

The performance premiered in October 2021 - it was the highlight event of the Dmitri Hvorostovsky Festival. The Artistic Director of the Festival, Anton Levakhin assembled an impressive production team that included conductor Peter Feranec (Slovakia), director Michael Sturminger (Austria), set and costume designers Renate Martin (Germany) and Andreas Donhauser (Austria), lighting designer AJ Weissbard (USA), artist Akhsar Muriev (Russia), teacher-accompanist Christian Koch (Austria), and assistant director Irina Lychagina (Russia). Each of them is a highest-level professional collaborating with the largest international art venues. 

For Michael Sturminger, Don Giovanni is a "night" work of art, a gloomy play in an indefinite place, and the protagonist is a "child of darkness". The doors of the buildings are firmly locked, but when they suddenly swing open, grandiose, brightly lit ballrooms open up to us - ballrooms for wild and lavish celebrations of every kind, where people are donned in garments made of rare valuable fabrics and gems. They shimmer and gleam, change colours and styles, genders and historical background - the masks are torn off, the costumes are removed, but we are not given the opportunity to determine who is who.

CATARINA OU LA FILLE DU BANDIT

July 29 and 30, the Historical Stage

Cesare Pugni's ballet Catarina ou La Fille du Bandit is a courageous educational project of the Hvorostovsky Theatre: for the first time in modern Russia, it presents a ballet forgotten for more than a hundred years. It’s an oeuvre of the outstanding choreographer, librettist, author of the famous Giselle - Jules Perrot. The ballet dates its history back to 1846 (London) and 1848 (Milan); later, Catarina was seen in Russia. The author himself directed his ballet on the stage of the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theatre in 1849. A year later, the performance was transferred to the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. More than a century later - the last production at the Bolshoi dates back to 1895 - Catarina ou La Fille du Bandit is again in Moscow. 

Choreography by Honoured Artists of Russia Yuliana Malkhasyants and Sergei Bobrov. Music director is Ivan Velikanov. When creating the production, its authors used the research of Jules Perrot's art specialist Olga Fedorchenko (St. Petersburg) and studied sketches of costumes and scenery found in the funds of the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music Culture. The reconstruction of the orchestral score on the basis of the extant parts and claviers of Caesar Pugni commissioned by the Theatre, was carried out by Pyotr Pospelov.

LAKME July 30 and August 1 - the New Scene

Rarely performed in Russia, Leo Delibes’ opera Lakme is one of the premieres of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre of the 2021/2022 season. It was staged by People’s Artist of Russia, conductor Alexander Rudin and director, diploma winner of the 2nd Nano-Opera International Competition for Young Opera Directors Sergei Novikov: Lakme is a unique title that almost no one knows, but almost everyone has heard its music. Léo Delibes wrote the opera when an oriental flavour was fashionable among French romantics. But the plot was ahead of its time, and 30 years later - at the beginning of the 20th century - Giacomo Puccini developed the theme of the collision of Western and Eastern ways of life and ideas in Madama Butterfly, which became a hit of the world opera art. This Lakmé production raises the question of the care and respect for each other. If we lack them, we may gravely hurt even the people we fell in love with.

Tickets are already on sale.