Dear friends,

After one exceptionally successful summer season, the Sofia Opera by tradition will open the new opera and ballet season 2021/2022 with a Bulgarian title! This year, we shall solemnly raise the curtain with the titles “The Saints Cyril and Methodius”, opera-oratorio by Jivka Klinkova and “Yana’s Nine Brothers”, opera by Lyubomir Pipkov.

We are expecting you from 3 October in the main spectator’s hall of the Sofia Opera!

3.10 * 16:00       SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS

This autumn, the solemn opening of the new 2021/2022 season will take place on 3 October, Sunday, at 16 h, with the Bulgarian opera-oratorio “The Saints Cyril and Methodius” by Jivka Klinkova, libretto to lyrics from “Sacred Legends” by Venko Markovski. Stage director – Vera Petrova, conductor – Zhorzh Dimitrov.

With this beginning the Sofia Opera pays tribute and important sign to the role of the apostolic mission of the Saint brothers for Bulgaria, for the rest of the Slavic world and the culture of Europe. The presentation of this significant work is in honour of 40 years of the declaring of the Holy brothers for co-patrons of Europe by Pope John Paul II. The Pope distinguished Jivka Klinkova’s work with a special diploma and personally applauded its concert performance in Bydgoszcz, Poland, in 1986.

8.10 * 19:00       YANA’S NINE BROTHERS

"An opera, requiring from the listener the most difficult: to pass through the tragedy, in order to reach its deep artistic beauty."
- Katya Kazandzhieva

Just in limited number of days, on 8 October at 19 h, is upcoming the opera “Yana’s Nine Brothers” by Lyubomir Pipkov. Stage director – Plamen Kartaloff, conductor – Zhorzh Dimitrov. Like enchanted remained the spectators at the Bolshoi Theatre after the last curtain of the opera, during its guest-performance in Moscow in 2018. With its obscure, sinister and fantastic reality, Lyubomir Pipkov’s work of art wrung powerful applauses from the overfilled hall!

Called the most Bulgarian opera by Bulgarian and foreign music critics, “Yana’s Nine Brothers” carries a deep and strong psychological analysis, which shakes the souls of the people. Acad. Plamen Kartaloff upgrades his director’s ideas with the support of the set designer Sven Jonke and the costume designer Stanka Vauda. At the basis of his stage concept is the idea about the cosmic role of the tree as a symbol of life, mediator of worlds, guardian of values, family memory and traditions. At the basis of his stage concept is the idea about the cosmic role of the tree as a symbol of life, mediator of worlds, guardian and keeper of values, family memory and traditions. The floor of the stage carries the idea of the earth – “O, my Earth, black and unfaithful” with a vision of “the black soil”, which buries the sinner, and helps the righteous one.