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Lebedovo Ezero vîv Vitosha - balet po music na Piotr Ilici Ceaikovski [ Author Michael Daniel Watson ] [ From category THE Articles ] [ Subcategory OperaRail 2014 ] [ Subcategory II Sofia Opera House ] [ Translator Cristian Butnaru ] [ Article date: 2014-10-26 ] [ From city Sofia ] [ Country Bulgaria ]   Like in the case of Greece, situated further, for me, then Norway, Portugal or Scotland :-) , the Opera in Sofia was further than Oslo, Stockholm, London or Southampton. Located only a night away by train, I didn’t find time or availability, although I monitor online the program, for about two years with the thought to go there, always leaving watching a spectacle in the Bulgarian capital for “next time”, although previously I have seen operas in less important places in Bulgaria, like Ruse, Plevna or Veliko Trnovo! ‘Cause that’s how the Romanians are, or rather more, that’s how people are :-) . With all of this, I already had seen a production of the Sofia Opera! It was last year “Tosca” at Veliko Trnovo right in the Tsarevets stronghold and how the delay “another time” wasn’t possible :-) , I took the train and went there, in spite of the fact that the second day I had a plane from Bucharest to Rome, and the train back to Bucharest was at 4 in the morning! That’s how people are! -:) The Sofia Opera, like the one in Ruse, has a habit (manner) to set up spectacles in small Bulgarian localities, right where specialized opera theaters don’t exist. If the Bulgarians can, of course that Romanians can too… Isn’t it so?!? And probably I wouldn’t have went to Sofia even now… if it wasn’t on my way to and from Athens, and the spectacle I went wasn’t scheduled sooner than the normal hour, 16 instead of 19, the train to Bucharest having the departure time not too late in the evening. By the way, how Sofia looks on my way to Athens: when I went the mountain was green, beautiful like it is in full summer, on my way back, only five days later, it was covered in snow, and in the city was cold and windy, it was winter already! Sofia is one of the two cities from the Balkan zone that resembles with Bucharest, the other one is Belgrade. “Benefiting” from communist “achievements”- which the Bulgarians seems to be proud off for reasons unknown to me! -, this city has interesting touristic objectives making it worthy for a special visit in this purpose, so I visited it, the first time, three years ago. Alexandr Nievsky Cathedral (second biggest orthodox cathedral, the first is St. Sava in Belgrade), Ivan Vazov Theater (resembling with the Romanian Opera from Cluj-Napoca, only painted in another color) St. Sofia statue (considered by some a little erotic – and where’s the problem in that?! ) the pedestrian zone (named Vitosa street) and for who likes enough soviet buildings, like the former Central Committee (Revolution Square) in Bucharest. Mount Vitosa has aprox. 2400m and is located in the nearby vicinity of the city, of course, another objective, in fact, it gives the most beautiful note to the city, enframing it in the background. There is even a street named Mihai Eminescu, but its small and you have to search with a magnifying glass the indicator on which the name of the Romanian poet is written. The Opera is somewhere in the center of the city, near the Alexandr Nievsky Cathedral, but, with all these it’s still wrong placed, on a devious street with a big grey block in front of it, due to this the building, although with nice aspect the columns ending with an Acropolis type dome, the opera can’t be admired that well. Plus (in fact, minus), near the building reigns a massive statue, still soviet “model”, crowding the area even more and the possibility to see the building. The interior, however, doesn’t have these problems. Its large, has two balcony (circle) rows and it’s beautiful. Although it doesn’t have a chandelier, being replaced with a strand of fittings which looks like a huge necklace arranged in an elliptic form. I was on the last upper row (I was holding the ceiling with my head :-) ), even from there I could see and hear pretty good. The lake was classic. I mean calm water, some ducks, sparrows, pigeons, crows, trees on the boundaries, a boat, a fisherman…. Aaa, I think I confound the lakes! :) "Lebedovo Ezero vŭv Vitosha", meaning the "Swan lake under Vitosa”, resembles the old production at Bucharest, and for who misses her, can go to Sofia for a partial return in time. Through a strange coincidence, "Swan Lake” was the first spectacle that i saw at almost all the near South-East Romanian Opera, meaning Belgrade, Ruse, Sofia. So i can recomand it.. even if its only for the simple motive that certanly its not in bulgarian or serbian :-) Either way, if at Belgrade the stage was small and at Ruse the music was played at speakears, at Sofia there are now negative aspects to report from this point of view, and as for the correctness of the dance... im not the one to judge. I liked the scenery, even though it wasnt too pompous. A few steps in the background and some models on the wall that suggested a castle, white costumes with dark green blouse/jacket, the colour was in tune with some elements from the ”wall” and the shade of the scenery wall, on which big leafs were drawn. The predominant color combination for the background was dark green with blue. The prince discretly highlighted, the bufon a little more, being red and Rothard in a darker green. The swans were white, nothing was improvised, the general image being, like i said, pleasent to the eye. Distribution: Katerina Petrova Ceco Ivanov Doychin Dotchev George Asparuhov Dirijor: Boris Spassov

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