The opera “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” by César Cui performed by the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre is called the best event of the year! That’s the decision of the contest jury of the II National Opera Award “Onegin”. The awarding ceremony was held in the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg.

This year, the contest jury reviewed 58 applications received from 28 music theatres of Russia. Contestants competed for the awards in 12 categories: Grand Prix “Onegin”, “Debut” (female and male), “Primadonna”, “Master of the Stage”, “The Supporting Role”, “Legend”, “Lineup”, “Theatre”, “Event”, “Concertmeister” and “The Soul of the Opera”.

“Nowadays, there are about 40 opera houses in Russia, and here we need an opera award of national value. A prize that would be a kind of voice of the professional community and would help viewers to expand the picture of the state of affairs in all the Russian opera theatres - from Vladivostok to Vladikavkaz, from Krasnodar to Yakutsk”, commented the president of the Onegin Prize, People's Artist of the Russian SFSR Sergei Leiferkus in the programme statement.

The première of the opera "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" took place in the past season. This performance opened the IV International Competition of Young Opera Singers named after Pyotr Slovtsov. And now the Krasnoyarsk Opera is the only theatre in the world, which has this opera in its repertoire.

“The Prisoner of the Caucasus” is a vivid example of bringing back an overlooked work that the audience has not heard for more than 100 years. An international team of directors worked on staging the opera: Vladimir Ryilov and Sergei Bobrov (Russia), Neeme Kuningas and Neme Iye (Estonia), Anna Kontek (Finland).

140 costumes were sewn in the workshops of the theatre specially for this performance, all of them made strictly in accordance with national traditions. The real gem of the performance is the ancient towers and two paintings of 200 square meters - a mountain landscape and a picture of Franz Roubaud “Storm of Achulgo”.

“The opera can be called the Caucasian story of Romeo and Juliet”, says the artistic director of the theatre Sergei Bobrov, “It's a bright and emotional performance with spectacular images, sword fighting and arias of fantastic beauty”.

Also, the opera soloist of the theatre, People's Artist of Russia Vladimir Yefimov was awarded with a special nomination “Serving the Theatre”.

Previously, the opera soloist of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre Ksenia Khovanova entered into the long list of the II Russian National Opera Award “Onegin” - 2017 in the nomination “Debut” (female) for performing Fatima in César Cui’s “Prisoner of the Caucasus”.