State Opera Stara Zagora Ballet

The ballet company of State Opera Stara Zagora developed from dance within opera into an ensemble with its own staged repertoire. Under Anna Vorobyova, its first professionally trained choreographer, it presented Bayer’s The Fairy Doll in 1949. Later productions included works by Asafyev and Bulgarian composers. Guest choreographer Vakhtang Chabukiani staged Laurencia in 1976 and Don Quixote in 1984, while subsequent artistic leaders expanded the company’s contemporary repertoire. Silvia Tomova’s appointment in 2016 brought a multinational ensemble and productions ranging from Swan Lake and The Nutcracker to Bulgarian dance drama and modern choreography. Touring is built into the working year of the Stara Zagora ballet, the dance company of the oldest opera house outside the Bulgarian capital. German audiences have met it in spa towns such as Bad Neuenahr, in mixed evenings drawn from opera and operetta — Verdi's La traviata, Kálmán's Die Csárdásfürstin — where dancers and singers appear on the same bill.