The Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre has received a grant of 14,900,000 roubles from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The theatre was among the recipients of the federal state grant in 2017 for launching creative projects and the reimbursement of costs associated with their implementation.

Grant refunded the money spent by the theatre for the IV International Opera Singers Competition named after Peter Slovtsov and the première of César Cui's opera “The Prisoner of the Caucasus”.

“We are very proud that our project was so highly appreciated at the federal level and the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre was among the grantees. This is the recognition and success of our theatre, because 10-15 applications were only approved among the huge number of them submitted for the grants. Including our application”, - says the director of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre Svetlana Guziy. - “And now we’re planning to spend the refunds for retrofitting our music, light and sound equipment, as well as for staging new performances. Very soon, in November, the première of the opera “Il Trovatore” will take place. In February, the annual festival "Stars Parade in the Opera" will open - two more premières will be held at it: the opera "Raphael" is a joint project with the Lyubov Kazarnovskaya Fund, and we’ll show a new version of the opera "Eugene Onegin", as well.

A vocal contest took place in our theatre from May 16 till 23, 2017. More than 50 singers from CIS countries and far abroad took part in it. This is a unique musical competition - it combines the basic principles of traditional opera and new technologies. The vocalists and directors’ competitions are combined in the third round, where duets from classical and modern operas come up with the experimental innovations developed by the participants of the creative laboratory "NANO-Opera" of the Moscow music theatre "Helikon-Opera".

The première of César Cui's opera “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” was held as a part of the competition. This performance is a vivid example of bringing back an overlooked work that the audience has not heard for more than 100 years. And now this performance can only be seen on the stage of our theatre. An international team of directors worked on staging the opera: Vladimir Ryilov and Sergey Bobrov (Russia), Neeme Kuningas and Neme Iye (Estonia), and Anna Kontek (Finland). The scale of the performance is evidenced by the fact that opera soloists, ballet dancers and the choir of the theatre are engaged in the play. 140 costumes were sewn in the workshops of the theatre specially for the whole cast, all of them made strictly in accordance with national traditions. The real gem of the performance introducing the charm of the Caucasus are the ancient towers and two paintings of 200 square meters - a mountain landscape and a picture of Franz Roubaud “Storm of Achulgo”.

“The Prisoner of the Caucasus” is a is a spectacular performance, it has everything in it: wonderful music, bright images and impressive scenes, choreographic numbers and rather complicated vocal parts”, says Sergei Bobrov, the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre artistic director, - “The success of the performance is also indicated by the fact that our troupe was invited to take part in the Russian Festival of Music Theatres "To See Music". On November 14, we’ll stage “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” in the Natalya Sats Musical Theatre”.

It’s noteworthy that professional theatres were allowed to participate in the competitive admissions for a grant from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The amount of the grant is 100 million roubles, which are distributed among 10-15 grantees. Under the conditions, cultural institutions can receive the state support once every three years only. In 2014 our theatre won a grant of 18 000 000 roubles for the International Forum "Ballet XXI Century” - the première of the ballet "Swan Lake" by Pyotr Tchaikovsky was held as a part of it.