Ballet – History
The first choreographer with specialized education in the troupe of the Stara Zagora Opera is Anna Vorobyova. Also, under her guidance was the first ballet production in the repertoire of the theater “The Fairy Doll” by Bayer (1949). In the period 1952 – 1955, Asen Manolov staged “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai”, “The Rivals”, “Invitation to the Dance”, and “Bolero”. A little later Teodorina Stoycheva staged the ballet “Kardzhalii” by Ivan Dimov.
The creative participation of Nedelcho Izov led to an increase in the participants of the troupe for the needs of the new modern building of the Opera (1971). From this period are the productions of “Coppelia” (1971) by Dimitar Tsenov, “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” by Boris Asafyev (1972) – graduation work of Margarita Arnaudova, who also staged “The Creation of the World” (1974).
Among the guest-choreographers, the Georgian artist and ballet master Vakhtang Chabukaiani stands out, who staged “Laurencia” (1976) and “Don Quixote” (1984). The director of the Ballet of the Berlin Television, Gerhard Petzold, directed the efforts to the modern dance jazz-dance technique. Under his guidance were the three ballet miniatures “Rhapsody in Blue”, “Bolero” and “Sailors on the Shore” (1987). The Ballet troupe was consulted by Igor Chernyshev from the Opera Theater in Kuybishev (nowadays Samara), who staged the ballet “Angara” (1987) by the contemporary Russian composer Andrei Eshpai to the libretto by Yury Grigorovich.
Penka Filipova (1996 – 2003) directed the repertoire to the modern musical styles. Alida Boneva (2003 – 2016) added to the troupe young performers from the ballet schools in the city and from the newly-formed ballet class at the “Hr. Morfova” National School for Musical and Performing Arts. During this period there stand out the productions of “The Magical World of Scheherazade” (2004), “Bolero” (2006), and “Cinderella” (2016) an adaptation to “The Nutcracker” (2009) by guest-producer Boryana Sechanova.
With the appointment of Silviya Tomova as an artistic director of the Stara Zagora Ballet (2016), a talented and highly motivated multinational troupe was formed with ballet dancers from Japan, Taiwan, Canada, France, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Albania. The repertoire was enriched with titles from different dance and music styles “La Giara” (2016), “Romeo and Juliet” and “Flight to Light”, “Swan Lake”, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (2017); “Winter Ballet Fairy Tale”, „La Boutique fantasque”, “Fire Dancer”, “Don Quixote” (2018), “The Nutcracker”, “Ghetto”, “Antigone”, the modern dance miniatures “Lotus”, “Dance at Dawn”, “Next One” (2019).