Bolshoi opera troupe to perform in Warsaw

The Bolshoi opera troupe is to arrive in the Polish capital today.

We'll perform a new version of Modest Mussorgsky's "Khovanshchina", as well as Sergei Prokofiev's "Love for Three Oranges", two times each in the forthcoming week, People's Actress of the USSR Maklava Kasrashvili, who heads the Bolshoi opera troupe, told correspondents here today prior to this tour.

Poland's national opera theater will simultaneously perform Stanislaw's Moniuszko's "Haunted Castle", Karol Szymanowski's "King Roger" and a new version of Peter Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater.

The decision to organize this full-fledged mutual opera-troupe tour is a highly important event for our theaters, Kasrashvili stressed. These operas were not chosen by chance, she added. A combination of such diverse operas will enable Polish music lovers to gain an insight into this leading Russian opera troupe, all the more so as the Bolshoi Theater had last toured Poland 13 years ago, she noted.

These mutual opera-troupe tours were suggested by the Presidents of Russia and Poland, as well as by national culture ministries, first deputy director of Warsaw's national opera theater Jerzy Boyar told reporters here today.