On 5th March, the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre will host the concert Puccini Passions within the festival Stars Parade at the Opera. Slovtsov. Staying true to the concert's title, the majority of the programme will feature works by the great maestro Giacomo Puccini. However, there will also be masterpieces by other Italian composers from the verismo movement – an art style known for its raw portrayal of human passions.

The programme will include vocal and instrumental excerpts from Puccini's operas Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, La Bohème, Gianni Schicchi, and Tosca, including the famous aria of Mario Cavaradossi from the third act of Tosca. The latter will be performed by the Italian tenor Emanuele d'Aguanno.  Of course, the concert’s curator, music director, and conductor Filippo Desi couldn’t resist including pieces from Krasnoyarsk Theatre’s recent major premiere - Puccini’s Turandot: the concert will feature the aria of Liù sung by Anna Avakyan, as well as the trio of imperial officials – the supporting yet memorable characters Ping, Pang, and Pong (Denis Grechishkin, Andrey Kolobov, Kirill Pankevich).

Kazakh baritone singer Emil Sakavov will open the concert with the prologue from Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci . The invited singers will as well close the concert: the Italian guests Alessandra di Giorgio and Emanuele d’Aguanno will perform a duet from Tosca.

This concert will undoubtedly be both an emotional and enlightening experience for Krasnoyarsk audiences. For some, it’ll be their first encounter with composers of Puccini's social circle, that’ll offer an introduction to their operatic works. Excerpts will also be performed from operas by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (I Gioielli della Madonna), Umberto Giordano (Fedora, Andrea Chénier), and Francesco Cilea (L'Arlesiana, Adriana Lecouvreur). Alongside the guests from Italy and Kazakhstan, soloists from the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre – Aliona Babivskaya, Olga Basova, Aliona Zafran, Viktoria Maslyukova, Zoya Rzheplyanskaya, Valentin Kolesnikov, Vladimir Lebedev, and Sevastian Martyniuk – will also take the stage.