Stage of the Ages

Stage of the Ages is an open-air opera and ballet festival held at Tsarevets Fortress in Veliko Tarnovo. Its first edition in 1985 marked the eight-hundredth anniversary of the uprising of Asen and Peter and opened with Marin Goleminov's Ivaylo, directed by Plamen Kartalov. The 1987 programme included Pancho Vladigerov's Tsar Kaloyan and Krasimir Kyurkchiyski's The Goat Horn. After a long interruption, the festival resumed in 2008. Organised by Veliko Tarnovo Municipality with the Tsarevgrad Tarnov tourist agency, it developed from 2016 into a shared summer platform for Bulgarian opera theatres, with participating companies from Varna, Ruse, Burgas, Stara Zagora and Plovdiv. The festival plays outdoors on the Tsarevets hill in Veliko Tarnovo, using the medieval fortress as its stage through the summer months. Veliko Tarnovo Municipality and its tourism agency Tsarevgrad Tarnov organise it, with support from the Ministry of Culture, and the programme is drawn from Bulgaria's opera houses — Varna, Stara Zagora, Burgas, Ruse and Plovdiv have all brought productions. Turandot was given there in July 2019.