Description of the attraction
The Varna Opera House occupies a luxurious Empire-style building. It is considered one of the most beautiful in the city. The popularity of the Varna Opera can only be compared with the Sofia Opera, which still remains in first place in Bulgaria.
The official opening of the theater in Varna took place on August 1, 1947. The first director of the theater was Stefan Nikolaev, and the famous Bulgarian tenor Pyotr Raichev acted as the artistic director. The troupe immediately got down to work: the young director Ruslan Raichev (with the assistance of the choirmasters Mladenov and Manolov, the artists Popov and Misin) staged the first performance - Bedřich Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride. Later, the theater included in its repertoire performances of various genres, covering an impressive part not only of the opera heritage of the 18th-19th centuries, but also of contemporary authors.
In the course of expanding creative boundaries and attracting a new audience, the troupe of the Varna Opera House added operetta to the repertoire. Mostly, these were classic productions of Offenbach, Strauss, Lehar. Also, the creative team began to actively work on staging modern musicals and children's performances.
The theater troupe has taken part in many pan-European theater and opera festivals and competitions ("Summer Varna", "Opera in the Open Air Theater"). The Varna Opera House has had a lot of tours: Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Greece, India, Romania, Egypt, Switzerland, Germany, Austria. The theater began to enjoy special prestige when famous opera singers (Nikolai Gyaurov, Anna Tomova-Sintova, Maria Koreli, Nikola Guzelev, Petr Glosop and others) began to come to Varna on tour.
In 1999, the Varna Opera, by order of the Minister, was merged with the Varna Philharmonic. Subsequently, these two state structures began to act as a single cultural institution - the Opera and Philharmonic Society of Varna.
Since 2010, the Opera and Philharmonic Society has been merged with the Stoyan Bchvarov Drama Theater. The latter retains its name, but the previously united opera and philharmonic society was transformed into the Varna State Opera.
