Ahead of the performance of Alexander Tchaikovsky’s opera To Love in Wartime, the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre will host a special pre-show talk as part of its Half an Hour Before the Third Bell project. The event will take place in the theatre foyer on 23 August at 5:30 p.m., led by Dr. Lyudmila Gavrilova, Doctor of Arts.

Lyudmila Gavrilova heads the Faculty of Music History at the Dmitri Hvorostovsky Siberian Institute of Arts, a Doctor of Arts, and a member of the Union of Composers of Russia. She also is Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre.

During the talk, she’ll explain what a “literary opera” is, why no one before Alexander Tchaikovsky had written an opera based on Viktor Astafyev’s works, who initiated the creation of To Love in Wartime, and introduce a symbolic character featured in the opera but absent from the writer’s original stories. Guests will, of course, have the chance to ask their own questions.

Lyudmila Gavrilova’s engaging talks are already known to music fans through the theatre’s Half an Hour Before the Premiere project, which has accompanied productions such as Oleg Prostitov’s ballet The Black Man and Vincenzo Bellini’s opera I Montecchi e i Capuleti. This past April and May, she also gave lectures on Tosca and Eugene Onegin.