The New Year’s concert, out of doubt the most enigmatic event in the programme of the Sofia Opera and Ballet, this time also is expected with a marked interest and excitement. In the cultural playbill of the capital there is hardly another similar phenomenon, about which one knows in advance so little, but expects it with such impatience. This year also the tickets for the concert, which will finish while we will be counting the last hours of the passing year, were sold out still in the beginning of November, and by unwritten tradition the audience will learn the contents of programme just with its entrance in the hall. 

The team of the director Plamen Kartaloff doesn’t betray the good tradition and for the next time in succession it will fascinate the most loyal fans of the New Year’s concert with selected opera and ballet performances of the theatre’s soloists and guest-performing artists in the programme of two parts with many accents. The holiday concert will be opened with the relatively rarely performed in our country overture “Candide” by Leonard Bernstein with the orchestra of the Sofia Opera and Ballet under the baton of Grigor Palikarov. Then follow fragments from premiere opera and ballet titles from the season, combined with works of art from the theatre’s repertoire. You will hear sounding the music of “La cenerentola” by Rossini, “Les pêcheurs de perles” by Bizet, “Prince Igor” by Borodin, Verdi’s “La forza del destino”, “La traviata”, “Macbeth”, “Attila”, “Lakmé” by Delibes, Puccini’s “Tosca”, “Gianni Schicchi” and “Turandot”, “Andrea Chénier” by Giordano, “Pagliacci” by Leoncavallo. They will be conducted by Boris Spasov, Grigor Palikarov and Velizar Genchev and performed by the soloists Radostina Nikolaeva, Kostadin Andreev, Silvana Pravcheva, Bayasgalan Dashnyam, Gabriela Georgieva, Kamen Chanev, Tanya Ivanova, Diana Vasileva, Biser Georgiev, Alexander Nosikov, Silvia Teneva, Atanas Mladenov, Blagovesta Mekki-Tsvetkova, Milena Gyurova, Hrisimir Damyanov, Veselin Mihaylov.

The famous tenor Kamen Chanev will demonstrate his talent in “Tosca” by Puccini – the title, with which on 4 February 2015 under the baton of Erich Wächter will be completed the upcoming cycle with four of his guest-performances at the Sofia Opera and Ballet. The cycle begins on 23 January 2015, when Chanev will sing in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” with conductor Borislav Ivanov. On 28 January the tenor will participate in Verdi’s “Un ballo in maschera” with conductor Boris Spasov, and on 1 February he will be in the cast of “Don Carlo” by Verdi with conductor Grigor Palikarov.

Heavily covered in the programme of the New Year’s concert are the ballet titles with the theatre’s current premiere “Sleeping Beauty” at the head, a director’s debut of the prima ballerina Masha Ilieva, “La bayadère” and “Don Quixote” by Minkus. On the stage will stand the first forces of the ballet company, among who the prima ballerinas Marta Petkova and Katerina Petrova, Tsetso Ivanov, Vihra Madzharova, Lyudmila Ilieva, Kristina Chochanova.

The surprises are registered mark of the New Year’s concerts of the Sofia Opera and Ballet, but this time they will become known during the event itself and at the time of its broadcasting by the Bulgarian National Television 1. Its first part will be shown on 3 January 2015 at 15.45 h, and the second one – on 11 January 2015.