On February 3, the star of the Italian and Russian opera scenes Svetlana Kasian will take to the stage of the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera House as Aida in the Verdi’s opera. This performance will open the 10th International Festival Stars Parade at the Opera.

Being much-in-demand abroad, Svetlana started singing the part of Aida rather recently - in November 2018 in the Novaya Opera Theatre. She considers Aida to be her favourite opera, and it’s a golden dream any singer cherishes much.

“Different theatres invited me to perform the part of Aida, but I turned their invitations down because of my self-criticism - this role really is a hard one. I’ve been working on it for many years. No effort has been spared to achieve the desired result. At first, I was afraid to even touch the score, then slowly began to rehearse the first scenes, they seemed incredibly difficult to me, I thought that I would never be able to overcome these difficulties. For almost five years I have been preparing Aida with various coaches in Milan, Turin, Venice... And I will continue to improve my performance because this is one of those roles a singer is working on throughout his life. It's like a unique diamond’s facets - the covering of them requires utter perfection,” - Svetlana said in an interview.

Along with Svetlana Kasyan, the Krasnoyarsk Aida performance’s cast includes guest stars People’s Artist of the RSFSR Sergey Leiferkus (Portugal), People’s Artist of Russia Irina Dolzhenko (Bolshoi Theatre), Honoured Artist of Russia Akhmed Agadi (Mariinsky Theatre).