FESTIVAL OF OPERA AND BALLET ART - OLD ZAGORA
Publication публикувана на: 24.09.2025
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The Festival of Opera and Ballet Art /FOBI/ is one of the longest-standing forums for classical music in Bulgaria. It was founded in 1967 under the name December Music Days. The programme then contained predominantly symphonic, chamber and choral concerts. After the opening of the new opera house in 1971, the "days" grew into the Festival of Opera and Ballet Art /FOBI/. Once every five years (1974, 1979, 1984 and 1989), it includes a National Opera Theatre Review, which honours the best authors, companies, production teams and performers.
After the changes in 1989 and the fire at the Opera House in 1991, the festival returned to its former form, with more chamber and concert events. It takes place during the summer months. These transformations also led to three interruptions - in 1990 2010 and 2013. Since 2011, with the restoration of the opera house, FOBI has returned to its usual November-December period.
In the long history of the festival, the guest appearances of a number of European ensembles with their best productions - the opera houses of Prague / Czech Republic /, Parma / Italy /, Bratislava /Slovakia/, Lodz and Gdansk /Poland/, Iasi /Romania/, Chisinau /Moldova/, New Belgrade Opera and Madlenianum Opera Theatre /Serbia/, Skopje /Northern Macedonia/, Natalia Sats Children's Theatre of Moscow /Russia/, the ballet companies of Budapest, St. Petersburg /Russia/, Moscow Classical Ballet, National Ballet of Cuba, Royal Danish Ballet, Ballet of the Grand Opera - Paris /France/.
On the stage of the Stara Zagora Opera for FOBI are visiting the biggest Bulgarian opera names such as Nikolay Gyaurov, Rayna Kabaivanska, Anna-Tomova Sintova, Nikola Gyuzelev, Nikola Nikolov, Kaludi Kaludov, Kamen Chanev, Stefka Mineva, Christina Angelakova, Alexandrina Milcheva, Veselina Katsarova, Tsvetelina Vassileva and others, as well as the conductors Assen Naydenov, Dimitar Manolov, Boris Khinchev, Rositsa Batalova, Rosen Milanov, Emil Tabakov and others.