Ekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre is one of the four federal musical theatres in Russia. Every season, Russian and international premieres of operas and ballets take place here. The theatre performances participate in the ‘Golden Mask’ National Theatre Festival annually and get numerous awards. Our touring schedule has taken us to 30 countries around the world, from France to Australia.
In 2018, the theatre underwent rebranding, acquiring the new name of Ural Opera Ballet. The theatre is now getting ready to open the Annual Festival of New Academic Art under this title. The theatre’s mission is to move forward, whilst looking back and honouring traditions to create the classics of the 21st century.
Ural Opera
The heritage of the Ekaterinburg/Sverdlovsk opera company incorporates a constellation of star names. Sergei Lemeshev, Ivan Kozlovsky, Boris Shtokolov, Irina Arkhipova, Galina Gorchakova started their career here; the theatre cannot be imagined without the names of Valentina Kitaeva and Jan Vutiras. The post of the principal conductor was in different periods of time taken by Kirill Tikhonov and Evgeny Kolobov. In the 1980s, the first high- profile stage productions by Alexander Titel were created here in cooperation with conductor Evgeny Brazhnik and artists Ernst Heidebrecht, Valery Levental and Yuri Ustinov.
The strategy of Ural Opera is while performing the most significant classical works, to introduce the audience to the new compositions and names of composers, directors, artists on a regular basis. The repertoire includes the operas by Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Bizet, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and, for the first time in the country, Rossini’s Le comte Ory, Satyagraha by Philip Glass, Weinberg’s The Passenger, Martinu's The Greek Passion. The Russian premiere of Three Sisters by Péter Eötvös is under preparation. Every theatre premiere is accompanied by a comprehensive educational program which is made possible thanks to the support of cultural and diplomatic institutions of Poland, Czech Republic, Greece and Switzerland.
Ural Ballet
The ballet company appeared in Ekaterinburg together with the opening of the opera house in 1912. Leonid Yakobson, Yuri Grigorovich, Igor Belsky, Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilev, the well-known Soviet choreographers, worked here in different years.
The relaunch of the company and its return to the ‘big league’ of the Russian ballet took place in 2011, when Vyacheslav Samodurov became its head. Here he created a number of new stage productions (including Salieri Variations, Tsvetodelica, Romeo and Juliet, The Order of the King; he started the ‘Dance-platform’ project to support young choreographers in cooperation with the Eurasia Ballet Foundation and initiated annual Winter and Summer Galas in collaboration with Ekaterinburg fashion designers (Ural Ballet Fashion-gala, 2018). In 2017, choreographer Anton Pimonov, a student of the St. Petersburg ballet school and a former dancer of the Mariinsky Theatre, joined the ballet company; he received the ‘Golden Mask’ award as the Best Russian choreographer of the season 2015/16. His approach to repertoire includes preservation of the 19th century classics, performance of the neoclassic pieces of the 20th century and creation of original works. Ural Ballet was the first Russian ballet company that staged the ballets by Hans van Manen (Five Tangos), Paul Lightfoot and Sol León (Step Lightly) and was the first to perform George Balanchine’s Walpurgisnacht Ballet. The theatre regularly orders new music scores from the Russian composers: new ballets were created by Artyom Vasiliev (The Snow Queen), Yuri Krasavin (Paquita), Anatoly Korolyov (The Order of the King) especially for Ekaterinburg theatre.
The project of reconstructing the ballets of Marius Petipa, originating at the Maryinsky Theatre, was further developed and marked the end of an era in the Russian ballet theatre (The Wayward Daughter and Paquita).
Since 2012, the Ural Opera Ballet has annually been nominated for awards at the Golden Mask Festival in Moscow and has been the recipient of this national theatre award, The Golden Mask, as follows:
2012
- Special prize of the musical theatre jury
Ilgam Valiev, Prince in The Love for Three Oranges
2013
- Costume Designer in a Musical Theatre Irena Belousova, Le comte Ory
- ‘For Artistic Breakthrough’ special prize of the musical theatre jury
2014
- Best Production / Ballet. Salieri Variations
- Best Choreographer. Vyacheslav Samodurov
- Best Actress / Ballet. Elena Vorobyeva, Salieri Variations
- Best Conductor / Ballet. Pavel Klinichev, Cantus Arcticus
2015
- Best Production / Ballet. Zvetodelica
- Best Choreographer. Vyacheslav Samodurov
- Best Conductor / Ballet. Pavel Klinichev, Zvetodelica
2016
- Special prize of the musical theatre jury
To the theatre Choir in the opera Satyagraha
- Prize of the critics. Satyagraha
2017
- Best Production / Ballet. Romeo and Juliet
- Best actor / Ballet. Igor Bulytsyn, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet
2018
- Best Conductor / Opera. Oliver von Dohnanyi, The Passenger
- Best actress / Opera. Nadezhda Babintseva, Liza, The Passenger
