Urals actors heading for grand guest performances abroad

The troupe of the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre (Yekaterinburg is an administrative centre of the Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals) has been invited for guest performances in Australia and the United States.

Larisa Barykina, head of the theatre's music and literary department, said on Thursday that the theatre has not been on such a major tour since 1987.

In the course of two months the Urals actors will perform in Australia where they will show the ballet "Romeo and Juliet" by Russian composer Sergei Prokofyev staged by Natalya Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilyov. New costumes and scenery were specially made for the coming performances of that ballet.

The theatre's opera troupe will be going to the United States in January. On their program will be two operas -- Verdi's "Il Trovatore" and Puccini's "Tosca." Both operas were produced by Italian Maria-Francesca Sociliani who came to Yekaterinburg in 1992 to stage Tosca and in 1997 to stage Il Trovatore.

The operas are sung in Italian. Perhaps this is the reason why the American producers have chosen the company from Yekaterinburg. The theatre administration hopes that the guest performances in America will be continued, for the American producers intend to invite the ballet troupe, as well.