It is paradoxical, but it is a fact! The New Year Gala Concert of Sofia Opera and Ballet turned into one of the events for rendezvous of the audience with the art of opera we dream of and look for. It is paradoxical, because the opera singers, the members of the orchestra and the audience are seeing off the last hours of the year on the way out in the opera house, and a fact – because this concert crowns more than one decade the efforts of a huge creative organism to recreate the truth of one great art with all its intransient beauty.  

For all who love opera, for the entire cultural world, 2013 was an opera year – we have made reference to two two-century jubilees – of Richard Wagner and of Guiseppe Verdi. In 2013 Sofia Opera and Ballet produced  “Götterdämmerung”, the last opera of Richard Wagner’s tetralogy “Der Ring des Niebelungen” which closed yet another golden page of its repertoire.     

The great “Maestro”, Guiseppe Verdi, was not off this repertoire for more than a century opera theatre in our country. Furthermore, several generations of Bulgarian singers, orchestra members and audience have grown and cultivated their conceptions about the art of opera namely via Verdi’s music.

This year, the New Year Gala Concert of Sofia Opera and Ballet will once again salute the audience grateful to Wagner’s and Verdi’s music. In the program are included extracts from their operas, as well as works by Bach, Händel, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Rossini, Gounod, Mussorgsky, Cilea, Tchaikovsky, Massenet, Bizet, Giordano, Minkus, Khachaturian, Shostakovich, music by Vesselin Stoyanov and Pancho Vladigerov and ancient chants by Yoan Kukuzel.

Participants are eminent Bulgarian names, connected with the Sofia opera stage – Vladimir Stoyanov, Gabriela Georgieva, Radostina Nikolaeva, Martin Iliev, Maria Radoeva, Dimitar Stanchev, Angel Hristov, Daniel Ostretsov, Silvana Pravcheva, Stoil Georgiev, Biser Georgiev, Tsvetana Bandalovska, Mariana Tsvetkova, Kostadin Andreev, Svetozar Rangelov, Krasimir Dinev, the ballet of the Opera and the soloists Milena Todorova and Nikola Hadzhitanev, Lyudmil Nenchev – violin, chorus and orchestra of Sofia Opera and Ballet with conductors Grigor Palikarov, Velizar Genchev, Boris Spasov and Stefan Nedyalkov.

And one charming surprise for the audience – on the stage will appear Alexandrina Milcheva, who will remind us with her artistic talent of the moments which we experienced with her music.

Many strong emotions and experiences are awaiting us, which we would like to share together, because the feast is for everybody. Because the joy from communication with music is our common credo and our truth!