National Music Theatre "Stefan Makedonski"

The Stefan Makedonski National Music Theatre in Sofia specialises in operetta, musical comedy and musicals. Its institutional history continues the professional operetta tradition established in Bulgaria in 1918. The theatre began its first season in 1948 with Yuri Milyutin’s Trevoga sred momite, premiered on 29 July under conductor Boris Leviev and director Hristo Popov. Johann Strauss’s The Gypsy Baron followed in May 1949, conducted by Ruslan Raychev. With singers, chorus, orchestra and dancers working within one company, the theatre maintains the combination of sung drama, spoken dialogue and dance characteristic of the operetta stage. Operetta keeps its own house in Sofia. The State Music Theatre, which carries the name of the tenor Stefan Makedonski, was established in the years after the Second World War as the capital's home for operetta, musical comedy and, in time, the musical, and maintains its own orchestra, chorus and dancers. Viennese repertoire has remained close to its centre: Johann Strauss's Wiener Blut has been among the works staged there.