The Sofia Opera announces with deep sorrow that on 6 January 2016, after a short illness, deceased the well-known opera director Emil Boshnakov.

Boshnakov was born in 1927. He studied music at the Leningrad Conservatory. He graduated in Opera Direction by Boris Pokrovsky, at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts – Moscow in 1956. He worked at Radio Moscow as presenter of the programme “Moscow speaking” from 1949 to 1955.

In 1957, he started working at the Sofia Opera as Artistic secretary, and later on, he became its Deputy Director. His first production as director in Sofia was the opera “Halka” by Moniuszko. From 1980 to 1991, he was Chief artistic director of the Stefan Makedonski State Music Theatre.

He was director of productions in Sofia, Burgas, Ruse, Varna, as well as at Gran Teatre del Liceu – Barcelona (with Placido Domingo as soloist – “Andrea Chénier” in1972, and as conductor – “Attila” in 1973). He produced different titles on stages in Spain, Belgium, Italy, Argentina, the USA, Turkey, Slovenia, Macedonia, Venezuela, etc. He directed “Rigoletto”, “La traviata”, “Sadko”, “The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh”, “Boris Godunov”, “Khovanshchina”, “Eugene Onegin”, “The Queen of Spades”, “Turandot”, etc. In Emil Boshnakov’s production of “Boris Godunov” at Teatro di San Carlo in Naples in 1970 took part Boris Christoff, the Chorus of the Sofia Opera and the conductor Asen Naydenov.

Emil Boshnakov’s productions of the operas: “Sadko” and “The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh” by Rimsky-Korsakov, “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina” by Modest Mussorgsky, “Nabucco” and “Il trovatore” by Giuseppe Verdi, “Turandot” by Giacomo Puccini and “War and Peace” by Sergei Prokofiev (produced by Pokrovsky and Boshnakov) were performed by the cast of the Sofia Opera in the period 1960 – 1989 and 174 times on the most prestigious European opera stages: Moscow, Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Naples, Palermo, Prague, Lausanne, Florence, Strasbourg.

Together with recognized artists like Hristo Brambarov, Mihail Lyutskanov, Nikola Nikolov, Ilka Popova, Katya Popova, Julia Wiener, Nadya Sharkova, Nadya Afeyan – under his direction made not only their debut, but literally rose to fame the young talents: Ghena Dimitrova, Galina Savova, Alexandrina Milcheva, Stefka Mineva, Svetlana Kotlenko, Dimitar Petkov, Nicola Ghiuselev, Stoyan Popov, Asen Selimski, Stefan Elenkov and others.
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We shall pay our last respects to him on 8 January, Friday, at 10.00 h
at the Sofia Opera and Ballet