In mid-December, the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre presented the advance premiere of a modern rendition of Alexander Borodin's undeservedly forgotten opera Heroes. 3rd- and 4th-year students of the Institute of Philology and Language Communication of the Siberian Federal University have launched the online project Theatre of Correctional Cultures dedicated to this unusual production.

In lay language, this educational website gives a detailed description of the director’s conception, the opera itself,  the history of the work itself, the stages of preparing the performance, its visual approach. Students Aliona Krasovskaya, Angelina Sanarova, Karina Radionova carried out significant work by collecting a large amount of information. They had a conversation with the author of the new libretto for Heroes, Alexei Bobrov, its production director Sergei Bobrov, and head of the theatre's workshops Eugenia Dubcheva.

The project features the opera's characters and the performers - artists of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, as well as feedback from experts and spectators after the premiere. This is the link.

The website development has been made possible due to the fact that the Department of Journalism and Literary Studies joined the Involvement Space - the programme of the Centre for Digital Cultures and Media Literacy of the Higher School of Economics that is implemented with the support of the Vladimir Potanin Charitable Foundation. The programme involves students from various universities in creating humanitarian transmedia projects for local theatres, museums, libraries, nonprofit institutions. Apart from the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, the partners of the student journalists are the  Surikov Museum-Estate, the Yudin Museum-Estate, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum, the Astafyev Museum of Literature.

It should be noted that the team of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre continues to improve the production of Borodin's opera Heroes; shortly, the premiere of the performance will be introduced to opera music fans.