Macedonian Opera and Ballet

The National Opera and Ballet in Skopje developed from the opera and ballet ensembles of the Macedonian National Theatre. The opera company gave its first production, Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, on 9 May 1947; the ballet ensemble followed in 1949. After the 1963 earthquake, the companies worked in temporary accommodation before moving to a new building in the 1980s. In 2004 opera and ballet became a separate institution under the name Macedonian Opera and Ballet. Its repertory has included productions such as Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, staged by Lev Pugliese with Ana Durlovski and Boris Trajanov among the singers. Founded in 1947, the Macedonian Opera and Ballet is the national company of North Macedonia for both art forms. Since 1981 it has worked from a striking modernist building on the bank of the Vardar, one of the structures that gave central Skopje its post-earthquake character — low, white, sharply angled, turning its back on the classical temple front that opera houses elsewhere still favour. Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor number among the works staged there.