On February 9 and 10, a happening and Anton Arensky’s “Raphael” opera are performed on the stage of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre. The performance is directed by a young director Daniil Dmitriyev. The show is a part of the IX international festival “Stars Parade in the Opera” and a joint project of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and the Lyubov Kazarnovskaya’s foundation “Forgotten names”.

The first part of the performance is styled on happening (the events literally are happening right here, on the spot). This genre comprises some theatrical action, improvisation focused on erasing the borders between art and life, an artist and a spectator. This is not only the new approach for Krasnoyarsk but also for the whole Russia. The participants of our happening are opera singer Lyubov Kazarnovskaya and Estonian artist and sculptor Tauno Kangro. In the real-time mode spectators will watch the artist Tauno Kangro working right on the stage and see the step-by-step process of creating an object of art - a picture or a sculpture. A large video display unit over the stage will help see every detail. What will result of it, is unpredictable and unknown even for the director. That makes watching the developing narrative on the stage incredibly interesting.

Spectators will find themselves in a workshop of a modern Artist who aspires to create his ultimate masterpiece but he is always disturbed by the events around him. And when he gets overwhelmed with misery he decides to resort to the canvases by great Raphael, which helped the Artist bring his inspiration back.

There is a story inside of a story there - the history (the Renaissance era) and modern reality get intertwined on the stage; it makes the “Raphael” opera performance more unusual. The storyline of the Arensky’s opera is about the love feelings between Raphael and his beloved La Fornarina who, according to a legend, posed as a model for the “Sistine Madonna”.

“Lyubov Kazarnovskaya is an architect and a moving spirit of the project. She’ll play the part of the Artist’s wife who’ll be a kind of bridge between two epochs - the Renaissance and the present time. She’ll read the poetry by Petrarch, Pushkin, Balmont and certainly Raphael Sanzio”, - the director Daniil Dmitriyev says. “Lately, I’ve been working on the projects which don’t have definite plots - every time it’s invented regarding of the project’s concept. For an opera director it’s a large artistic achievement and high responsibility at the same time”.