About Us

The project is run by an international team, a world renowned Francesca Zambello is the director. It is already the third production for her at the Bolshoi Theater. (In 2002 she staged Turandot by G. Puccini, and in 2004 — for the first time at the Bolshoi — The Fiery Angel by S. Prokofiev).



Francesca Zambello:

“La Traviata — surely is one of the greatest operas ever written, and one of the most important works from the so-called” middle period “in the works of Verdi. For the first time ever the composer based his opera on a modern, popular, book which shocked the society, and not a myth, or, say, a play by Shakespeare. It was a real revolution, a real shock to the public: the opera, which tells about real people, living in the present, with real problems, the opera telling the story about love between an experienced woman and a very young man who, in addition, came from different social strata, about an incurable disease. And, please, note that La Traviata does not belong to those works where love overcomes all obstacles.

Today we no longer think about it. La Traviata is not perceived by us as a revolutionary product, but it seems to me that even now it is still very important to find in the characters that force and ‘intensity’ of emotions that shocked people.

For me and for all the staging team it is a huge honor to work on La Traviata at the Bolshoi Theatre. This opera has not been on a stage for rather a long time. And for us it is a chance to tell a story which seems to be well-known to everybody, but which nobody really knows. In this performance we will at the story via the perception of Violetta herself — a mysterious and beautiful woman, whom everyone loved and idealized, but — no one knew”.

Venera Gimadieva, the soloist of the Bolshoi, Albina Shagimuratova — a splendid Lyudmila in the last season premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre and the Mariinsky soloist Oksana Shilova rehearse the part of Violetta. An admirable tenor Alexey Dolgov, who joined the Bolshoi troupe this season, and the singer from the Youth opera program Evgeny Nagovitsyn will sing Alfredo. Igor Golovatenko and Vasily Ladyuk, soloists of the “New Opera” which has a long and successful history of cooperation with the Bolshoi, will sing Germont.

The Musical Director of the production is Laurent Kampellone, a French conductor, already familiar to the Moscow public: in 2010 he conducted a concert performance of Offenbach “Tales of Hoffmann” in the opera season ticket of the Moscow Philharmonic (Orchestra — “New Russia” and an international team of singers).

Premier performances will take place on October 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18.