State Opera Rousse

Opera reached Ruse before it reached most of Bulgaria: the Lira music society was giving performances by 1891, and an Opera Society followed in 1919. The company survived precariously as a private enterprise until the state took it over in 1949, opening that phase in November with Verdi's La traviata, and moved in 1956 into the building that has been an emblem of the city ever since. Its great occasion came in 1965, when Shostakovich came to Ruse to work on the première of Katerina Izmailova and stayed through the preparation; he was made an honorary citizen. The company merged with the state philharmonic in 1999 and has toured widely in Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, the Low Countries and beyond. Nayden Todorov directed the institution from 2005 to 2017.