The Stara Zagora Opera - on the pages of the December issue of the prestigious Italian magazine Il Mondo della musica / The World of Music
News публикувана на: 16.12.2024
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Here is the translation of the article:
Bulgaria, Stara Zagora At the State Opera-Stara Zagora
"Coppelia" is a benchmark for celebrating the centenary of ballet in Bulgaria
On 29 November, the State Opera Stara Zagora stage hosted the ballet "Coppelia" by Leo Delibes with new choreography by Luigi Martletta, former premier soloist of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. If the choice of the date was conceived as a tribute to Giacomo Puccini, whose death occurred on that very day, the performance of "Coppelia" celebrated the founding of ballet in Bulgaria by Anastas Petrov, a dancer, choreographer and teacher who transformed the first ballet company, originally composed of amateurs, into a homogeneous ensemble with remarkable stylistic and technical qualities.
"Coppelia" is part of a series of events within the 54th Festival of Opera and Ballet Art (November 21 - December 4). In addition to celebrating the 100th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini's death, the theatre recalled 110 years since the birth of the famous Bulgarian bass Boris Hristov, 75 years of the Stara Zagora Ballet Company and, above all, 125 years since the birth of Anastas Petrov, as already mentioned, the "patriarch" of Bulgarian ballet.
During the festival different opera and ballet performances were presented almost every day. Among them, we will mention in particular the premiere performances of the two operas by Puccini, Gianni Schicchi and LeVilli/Samodivite, presented on stage on 21 and 22 November respectively, as well as the evening with excerpts from the ballets La Vivandière, Il Talismano, Esmeralda, The Fairy of the Dolls on 24 November.
The festival dedicated 29 and 30 November to the ballet Coppelia, and on 29 November there was a presentation of Flavia Papachena's book Salvatore Russo, Set and Costume Designer. The Dream, the Way, the Reality", published by the State Opera-Stara Zagora. Commissioned by the theatre's director Ognyan Draganov, the book aims to pay tribute to the Maestro on the occasion of his sixty-year creative career, twenty-eight years of which are connected with Bulgaria (Opera theatres and stages in Sofia, Varna, Pravets, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, etc.).
This event was accompanied by an exhibition of Salvatore Russo's sketches and costumes from operas and ballets performed in Bulgaria, evidence of ambitious productions, some of which were also presented on tour not only in Bulgaria, but also in Brazil, Japan, Korea, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. This experience will be repeated again ("Norma" and "Coppelia" will soon be at Teatro Lirico-Leche) as a sign of the fruitful collaboration with Italian choreographers, conductors and directors. The 225 images in the book - photographs, stage sketches, costume sketches - span Russo's entire artistic career, from his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome (with Mario Rivosecchi and Angelo Canevari) and his apprenticeship to the great Lila DeNobili, to his first experiences with minimalist architecture, to experimenting with painted scenography with studies in the historical contextualization of costume.
