The music institution will open the new season on 9 October with “Yana’s Nine Brothers”
The most often performed in the world musical “Les Misérables”, which will be staged at the Sofia Opera and Ballet by the Director Acad. Plamen Kartaloff, will come back on the stage after the compulsory pause, caused by the corona crisis. The grandiose spectacle you will have the possibility to see again on Sofia stage on 30 October at 19 h., on 31 October at 11 and 19 h.
Claude-Michel Schönberg’s music and the lyrics adaptation by Alain Boublil reproduce the revolutionary onrush in France from the times of the successive transformation in the public administration of the country, described in Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name.
The main story in it is developed around the figure of the former prisoner Jean Valjean, who sees the power of good in the world, although he cannot escape from his dark past. Beginning in 1815, the narrative reaches its culmination in 1832 with the June Rebellion in Paris at the barricades, following the life and the relationships of several characters, and concretely the sufferings of the former convict Jean Valjean and his redemption.
“The staging on Sofia stage of “Les Misérables” is the coming true of my dream from 1987”, told the stage director Plamen Kartaloff, who offers to the spectators an incredible experience, guaranteed by the acting, the music and the stage adaptation of the spectacle. In order to be seen by the Bulgarian spectators, the Sofia Opera has bought the copyright for the musical by its owner – the most successful and influential music producer in the world Cameron Mackintosh.
“Les Misérables” has been on stage already over 30 years with more than 10 000 performances and it was watched by 60 million spectators in 42 countries, it was sung in 21 languages. The composer Claude-Michel Schönberg made in 1978 a conceptual album after Victor Hugo’s novel, with lyrics by Alain Boublil, and later they both revised the album in a musical. Its first production was in Paris in 1980 and up to this day “Les Misérables” is considered for a real classic in the genre. In 2016, BBC 2 called “Les Misérables” the best musical of all times.
In the role of Jean Valjean will alternate Vladimir Mihaylov and Bogomil Spirov, in the role of Javert are Orlin Pavlov and Atanas Srebrev, of Fantine – Vesela Delcheva and Paolina Maleshkova, of Cosette – Anna Vutova and Elitsa Krasimirova.
After the exceptional summer season, marked by lot of productions, performed on five open stages by great spectator’s interest, the Sofia Opera and Ballet invites its admirers to be its guests also to the prepared specially for them opera and ballet spectacles and spectacles for children in the new artistic season. It will be officially opened on 9 October 2020 with the opera “Yana’s Nine Brothers” by the composer Lyubomir Pipkov, author of the libretto is Nikola Veselinov.
With the most Bulgarian opera, as defined by the music critics in Bulgaria and in the world, will be set the beginning of a season, which will pass under the sign of marking the 130th Anniversary of the Sofia Opera and Ballet.
“Yana’s Nine Brothers” is an opera, revealing the eternal problems of our being – goodness, talent, striving for creation of beauty, envy and spite, betrayal, destruction of the created beauty. This is a spectacle, saturated with the meaning of national culture and with elements of the impulsiveness of the modern world with a plot, telling about the events from the 14th century during the time of the Ottoman domination in Bulgaria. All this inspired Lyubomir Pipkov to write his opera, when he was student in Paris.
“I wanted to see the past of my people from contemporary positions, to reveal the right of a life, full with wisdom, experience and faith in the future”, shared Lyubomir Pipkov about his work of art.
Having produced the opera “Yana’s Nine Brothers” in 1984 in Ruse, 34 years later the spectacle’s stage director – Academician Plamen Kartaloff input in it new ideas, which the audience will have the possibility to see – like the one about the cosmic role of the tree – symbol of life, keeper of values, family memory and traditions. Maestro Kartaloff marked that the included in a part of the production authentic costumes and mummer’s and babuger’s masks are interpreted as symbols and images of the people’s fate and the fight with the historical evil.
The opera “Yana’s Nine Brothers” was performed with great success on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, during the guest-performances of the Sofia Opera and Ballet in Moscow in 2018, and at the opening of the First summer festival “Portal of the Two Worlds” in August this year at the antique Tsari Mali Grad Fortress in the Samokov Region.
Stage director is Academician Plamen Kartaloff, conductor – Zhorzh Dimitrov, set designer – by Sven Jonke, costume designer – Stanka Vauda, choreographer – Riolina Topalova, chorus master – Violeta Dimitrova.
A story about forbidden love and the peripeteia through which must pass the participants in it is at the basis of the plot of another title in the new season of the Sofia Opera and Ballet – the opera “Un ballo in maschera”, written by the unsurpassed opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, which the audience will have the chance to see on 11 October 2020, at 19 h. For basis of the plot of his work Giuseppe Verdi used D.F. Auber’s opera, written after the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden during a ball in 1792. A case, which turned into a plot of a series of dramatic and opera works.
The story about the nobleman Riccardo, who is generous ruler too and his secret love for the wife of his secretary Renato, set also at the basis of the opera, was subject to serious revisions and censorship before its production on stage, most of all because of the way in which a coronated figure is presented before the audience.
“Un ballo in maschera” is defined by the critique as one of Giuseppe Verdi’s top artistic achievements, in which word, music and action are inextricably bound and have a strong effect upon the spectator. For this contributes the used by the composer method of the contrast – sinister figures during a festive revelry, tender lyric during a mysterious and obscure scene.
The premiere of “Un ballo in maschera” was on 17 February 1859 at Teatro Apollo in Rome and passed with great success. Later it was performed under the name “Amelia” at other Italian theatres, and after that in Paris, Berlin and other world stages. In Bulgaria it was performed for the first time on Sofia stage on 22 October 1926 under the direction of Il. Arnaudov, conductor was W. Bobchevski. The last production was in season 1992-1993 with conductor Boris Hinchev and stage director Emil Boshnakov.
The ballet masterpiece “Don Quixote” to the music of the composer Ludwig Minkus will open on 15 October 2020 at 19 h the new ballet season. The work, about which the critique is categorical that since its first presentation it was doomed to success, materializes in itself the art of Spanish folk dance and the classic ballet. It tells the story about the innkeeper Lorenzo, who wants to marry his daughter a rich aristocrat, but this marriage seems impossible, since the daughter Kitri is in love with the barber Basilio.
The literary character from Miguel de Cervantes’s famous novel of the same name – Don Quixote, known as Knight of the Woeful Countenance, holds in Ludwig Minkus’s ballet a secondary role, but in spite of this in the spectacle he keeps the characteristics of his personage – to be ready for feats and noble actions, together with his squire Sancho Panza. The first production of the ballet “Don Quixote” was in Vienna in 1740. Since then up to this day, the spectacle was staged by many ballet companies all around the world in different versions.
The tragic story of the Japanese princess Cio-Cio-San, told in Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly”, the audience can see on 16 October 2020, Friday, at 19 h on the stage of the Sofia Opera and Ballet. The defined as tragic opera is written to the libretto of Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa after David Belasco’s drama “Geisha”, based on the novel of the same name by John Luther Long.
The plot for his opera Giacomo Puccini discovered during his stay in London, where he saw David Belasco’s one-act tragedy and he began composing it in 1901. After some breaks, the work was finished for its premiere in 1904 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, but it experienced failure. This was the reason for the composer to undertake a series of alterations and to present the opera several months later the same year in Brescia, and one year later it was performed at Covent Garden, London, and at Opéra Comique in Paris.
In “Madama Butterfly” the audience is transported in the Japanese town Nagasaki, where live the American lieutenant Pinkerton and the young Japanese Cio-Cio-San, whose marriage will soon be fact, but their love is doomed and the story ends with Cio-Cio-San’s death.
The fairy-tale, telling the story of an evil sorcerer, who turned beautiful girls into swans and about the power of good and love, set at the basis of the plot of the ballet “Swan Lake” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, will be narrated before the audience on 17 October at 19 h. This is one of the most popular and loved ballets in the world, but also the most often produced on the stages of the ballet theatres.
A story about the love, transporting the spectator in the palace of prince Siegfried, where run preparations of his future wedding with a girl, who he must choose, but he falls in love with a swan, transformed by an evil sorcerer into the beautiful princess Odette. Before her Siegfried takes a vow to release her from the curse, oppressing her and her friends. The evil sorcerer is defeated and the magic spell is broken. In Bulgaria the ballet “Swan Lake” was performed for the first time on 5 February 1937.
One of the most popular and unforgettable comic operas “Don Pasquale” by Gaetano Donizetti is the other offer in the new season of the Sofia Opera and Ballet. On 18 October, at 19 h, the audience will have the possibility to get closely in touch with Donizetti’s exquisite music, through which he skilfully reproduces one well-known and eternal plot of life – about the love and peripeteia, through which it passes, especially when it is a matter of wealth and heirs.
For the first time the opera “Don Pasquale” was performed on 4 January 1843 in Paris, and since then up to this day it enjoys great spectator’s interest. The first production in Bulgaria was in 1932, at the Sofia Opera. “Don Pasquale” is defined by the music critique as one of Donizetti’s most precious comic operas. A work, the music of which the composer wrote for only eight days and through it he makes the audience empathetic with the emotions, conquered the soul of the old bachelor Don Pasquale, who wants to make his life better by marrying a young woman. But whether his expectations will come true?
The Sofia Opera and Ballet prepares the next pleasant surprise for its spectators and for the admirers of ballet art on 22 October at 19 h. with the spectacle of the ballet “Carmina Burana” to the music by Carl Orff, telling the story about human’s fortune and the stages, through which passes every one of us in his or her life. A spectacle, which presents in an untraditional way the narrative about the difficult transition from youth to maturity and about the triumph of man, regardless of the miseries of life and death.
Through his music the German composer Carl Orff brings the spectator back to the times of morally corroded communities, which oppose the fear from the punishment of God and want to create life and enjoy their love, to live without the social taboos and the limitations caused by moral. Orff wrote music, presenting the image of evil in its most superstitious aspect.
“Carmina Burana” is one of the most preferred contemporary works of art, written by Carl Orff. At its basis lays the original lyrics of the homonymous poetry collection from the Middle Ages. It is defined as stage cantata with 25 songs by unknown authors, which the composer has interweaved in music and dance, directed towards the way of life of the human being, passing through joy, sadness, fortune, poverty.
The story about the power of love and how two persons are ready to sacrifice their life for it, incorporated in the plot of the opera “Norma” by Vincenzo Bellini, the audience of the Sofia Opera and Ballet will have the chance to see on 23 October, Friday, at 19 h. The lyric tragedy in two acts was written in 1831 – a time, in which in Italy was reigning a patriotic upswing, which seized also the composer Vincenzo Bellini and he took up to create a work, in which dominates the concept for the fight of liberation and the hatred for slavery.
In “Norma”, besides the theme of war and liberation, clearly present is also the eternal theme of love and betrayal, which Norma suffered by the priestess Adalgisa – in love with Norma’s husband and because of this betrayal a war broke out, which ended with the death of Norma and her beloved Pollione. The composer Vincenzo Bellini took actively part in the writing of the opera’s libretto and was continuously making a lot of changes in it and in the scenes, changing even one of the most famous arias in the opera – Casta Diva. For the first time “Norma” was presented on 26 December 1831 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, but its premiere didn’t pass with success, in contrast to its second presentation, which evoked real furore and this way gradually “Norma” turned into one of the most popular operas.
The romantic ballet “Giselle” by the composer Adolphe Adam the admirers of dance art will have the possibility to see on the stage of the Sofia Opera and Ballet on 24 October, Sunday, at 19 h. At the basis of its plot lays the story about the unrequited love between the beautiful Giselle and Albert, which the composer borrowed from the French writer Théophile Gautier. The ballet was finished in 1841 and its premiere in Paris at that time passed with unprecedented success, which it enjoys up to this day at its presentation on the world stages, when this rare example of the romantic ballet is performed before audience and carries the message that sometimes the pain from lost love is stronger even than death.
The opera masterpiece “Carmen” by Georges Bizet the audience of the Sofia Opera and Ballet can see on 25 October, Sunday, at 16 h. The interpretation of the spectacle’s stage director Plamen Kartaloff will transport the spectator in a world of mixed principles of modernity and traditions from the ancient Greek theatre and the ancient Japanese Noh theatre and it will make the audience feel the director’s concept to present the opera in a nonstandard way. In it is allocated place to the destiny of the main characters, and the space around the specific arena is assigned to the reactions of one chorus – at the same time observing the events and commenting what’s happening.
“Carmen” is a tragedy of the personality. This is why in the spectacle she is a centre, as down-to-the-ground person, but restricted by a superterrestrial force. For her love and freedom are more important than life. She herself becomes their victim, fighting against the predestination, which marked her. Her pride is punished and because of her conscience she is constantly looking for change – boldness and challenge. But human life is in the hands of Fate.
PROGRAMME FOR OCTOBER OF THE SPECTACLES ON BIG STAGE:
11.10. (Sunday), 19:00 h, opera “Un ballo in maschera” – Verdi
15.10. (Thursday),19:00 h, ballet “Don Quixote” – Minkus
16.10. (Friday), 19:00 h, opera “Madama Butterfly” – Puccini
17.10. (Saturday), 19:00 h, ballet “Swan Lake” – Tchaikovsky
18.10. (Sunday), 19:00 h, opera “Don Pasquale” – Donizetti
22.10. (Thursday), 19:00 h, ballet “Carmina Burana” – Carl Orff
23.10. (Friday), 19:00 h, opera “Norma” – Bellini
24.10. (Saturday), 19:00 h, ballet “Giselle” – Adolphe Adam
25.10. (Sunday), 19:00 h, opera “Carmen” – Bizet
30.10. (Friday), 19:00 h, musical “Les Misérables” – music and libretto Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil
31.10. (Saturday),11:00 and 19:00 h, musical “Les Misérables”
01.11. (Sunday), 11:00 и 19:00 h, – musical “Les Misérables” – music and libretto Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil
Phots: Alexander Bogdan Thompson