The 54th Festival of the Opera and Ballet Arts – Stara Zagora 2024

21 November – 4 December

The Festival for Opera and Ballet Arts – Stara Zagora is the first specialized forum for opera and ballet in Bulgaria. It was created in 1967 as December Music Days, and in 1973 was renamed as Festival for Opera and Ballet Arts. The Festival’s program aspires to reflect the newest and fruitful tendencies in the musical-scenic arts, being open to a maximum wide spectrum of participants, encouraging the popularization of the Bulgarian musical-scenic art and recalling personalities and events, with contribution to the national and world culture.
The forthcoming edition is the 54th one. The Festival of the Opera and Ballet Arts – Stara Zagora is from 21 November to 4 December 2024. The highlights in the Festival’s program are 100 Years since the Death of Giacomo Puccini, the 125th Anniversary of the Birth of the great ballet-dancer and ballet pedagogue Anastas Petrov, 110 Years since the Birth of the Bulgarian Bass Boris Hristov, 100 Years since the birth of the Bulgarian composer and conductor Konstantin Iliev, the 75th Anniversary of the Ballet Troupe of the Stara Zagora State Opera and in memory of the 60th Anniversary of the world renowned tenor Kamen Chanev.

In the Festival participants are four Bulgarian theaters for musical-scenic arts, one national museum and one festival: the hosts from Stara Zagora with the premieres of the opera triptych by Puccini “Gianni Schicchi” and “Le Villi”, and the ballet “Coppelia” by Delibes, the Plovdiv State Opera, with the last opera of Mozart “La clemenza di Tito”, Musical State Theater “Stefan Makedonski”, with the musical “The Misunderstood Civilization” by Decho Taralezhkov, the Museum “Boris Hristov” will present the concert-spectacle “The Bulgarian Basses”, the Festival “March Musical Days” – a memoire book of the eminent Bulgarian conductor and composer Konstantin Iliev “Speech and Work”. The final of the Festival is the musical drama “Das Rheingold” by Richard Wagner, production of the Sofia Opera and Ballet.

For the last few years the Festival has been a hospitable host of events, created by the independent cultural sector. The author’s project by Aleksandra Dicheva “A Dialogue with Solitude” is dedicated to the work of composer Todor Popov to texts by Bulgarian classical poets. In cooperation with Foundation “Kamen Chanev” there will be created and presented an exhibition, dedicated to the great opera performer. The meeting with the contemporary poet and musician Valentin Donchevski continues yet another line of the Festival’s program as a bridge among different arts and forms of creative self-expression.

Among the foreign participants stand out the visits of the National Ballet of El Salvador – for the first time in Bulgaria, the Italian artist Salvatore Russo, with an exhibition and a presentation of an edition about him by Flavia Pappacena, as well as the seminar of one of the deepest researchers of the contemporary dance culture Prof. Dr. Gabriele Brandstetter from the Free University – Berlin.

The Festival is organized with the support of the Stara Zagora Municipality, the Ministry of Culture, the National Fund “Culture” and the Polish Cultural Institute.