This audience has not heard the opera for more than 100 years. In pre-revolutionary Russia, it was even more popular than the ballet "Swan Lake" by Tchaikovsky. For the production at Europe, the opera was translated into French. This performance is a reflection of love and hatred, freedom and captivity, life and death, war and peace.

Krasnoyarsk opera and ballet theater on May 16 and 20 presents the world premiere of Caesar Cui's opera "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" based on works by A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov and L. Tolstoy.

The original plot of the work is borrowed by the composer from the poem written by A. Pushkin. The opera was conceived and written by 22-year-old Cui, then being a cadet of the Nikolayev Military Engineering Academy, and twenty years later it was reworked by him.

"Caesar Cui in his time was a very popular composer, to his pen belongs thirteen operas, they were all performed. And then they forgot about them. "Prisoner of the Caucasus" is written on the plot of the Pushkin's poem. There are many possibilities to solve this opera epically, to make it as a conflict of religions, mentality, civilizations. I take the opera as a touching story of Romeo and Juliet, just a different time and at other circumstances, "says the director of the play Neeme Kuningas. - We work with excellent team. And we have a unique opportunity to re-begin the history of the interpretation of this work. In fact, it's the same as putting an entirely new work, because for several generations we have not seen or even heard the recording of "Prisoner of the Caucasus"".

The production process was preceded by serious research and pioneering work on the creation of new musical version of the opera: the dynamics of the musical development of vocal scenes, magnificent battle scenes, and, of course, incendiary lezginka performed by the ballet troupe of the theatre. The authors of the new version are Sergei Bobrov and Vladimir Rylov. The idea and development of tempo-rhythm, scenes of the performance, dynamics of action and the finale of the opera belongs to Sergei Bobrov.

The scale of the production is evidenced by the fact that it employs three opera soloists, ballet dancers and the choir of the theatre. For them, 140 costumes are sewed in the workshops: spectacular burqas, Circassian coats, papakhas, silver embroidered women's dresses - all of them are strictly in accordance with national traditions. The consultant of the production is assisted by the people's artist of the Chechen Republic, art director of the Chechen state ensemble of dance "Vainakh" Adnan Majidov.

The atmosphere of the Caucasus and the special coloring of the setting are given by two huge paintings painted in the hand-painted technique - the mountain landscape (19x11 m) and the painting by Franz Roubaud "Storm of the Akhulgo village" (18x11 m). Now, in the age of high technology, such scenic painting of the scenery has become a rarity for modern theatres. Addition to these paintings will be stone crumbling and two eight-meter watchtowers.

The budget of the production: about seven million rubles.

The production group: music director and author of the libretto is the laureate of the State Prize named after M. Glinka of the Russian Federation Vladimir Rylov (St. Petersburg), the author of the new stage production and choreography is the honored artist of Russia Sergei Bobrov, the director is the laureate of the State Prize of Estonia, the Knight of the Order of the White Star Neeme Kuningas (Estonia), the artist - master of arts, the silver medal winner of the international Prague Quadrenennale, knight of the knightly cross for artistic merit in front of Poland and the knightly order of the Lion of Finland Anna Kontek (Finland), lighting artist - Neeme Iye (Estonia).