Minsk – Samara

Igor Kolb's ballet Illusions of Love will open the 5^th International Art Festival “Shostakovich. Beyond Time”, which will take place at the Samara Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

The principal ballet master of the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus, Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation Igor Kolb staged his first production to the music by Dmitri Shostakovich, Frédéric Chopin, Leonid Shirin in last December. The Belarusian ballet company will perform the production on 8 September. And the prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre (St Petersburg) Oxana Skorik will appear in the title role of the Girl.

On 10 and 11 September, the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus will present another ballet about love. The legendary Aram Khachaturian’s Spartacus (staged by Valentin Elizariev) will be performed within the International Art Festival “Shostakovich. Beyond Time”. ‘Love is always in the limelight. In this ballet, it is the soul of the production... And where love triumphs, there is a woman, first of all…’ the People's Artist of the USSR and Belarus, choreographer Valentin Elizariev said.

The People's Artists of Belarus Irina Eromkina and Anton Kravchenko, the Honoured Artists of Belarus Liudmila Khitrova, Yury Kavaliou, Maryna Vezhnavets, as well as Konstantin Belokhvostik, Vladimir Ruda, Denis Shpak, Tatsiana Ulasen, Andrey Bariev, Dmitrii Uksusnikov, Diana Bagatova together with the symphony orchestra of the Bolshoi Thetre of Belarus will perform on the stage of the Samara Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. Nikolai Koliadko will conduct.