Varna State Ballet
Dance
The Varna Ballet was established simultaneously with the creation of the Varna Opera.
The first ballet master was Asen Manolov. Other ballet masters who worked with the ballet troupe are Zhivko Biserov, Penka Stoycheva, Anastas Petrov and others. Galina Yordanova and Stefan Yordanov, who worked with the troupe from 1960 to 1985, significantly contributed to the development of the Varna Ballet. Besides the regular participations in opera, operetta and musical spectacles for children, the ballet troupe has had independent ballet productions.
The ones which stand out are Raymonda by A. Glazunov, Romeo and Juliet by S. Prokofiev, The Nutcracker by P. I. Tchaikovsky, Spartacus and Cipollino by A Khachaturian, Giselle and Le Corsaire by A. Adam, La fille mal gardee by P. Hertel, Coppelia by L. Delibes, Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, A csodalatos mandarin by L. Bartok, El amor brujo by Manuel de Falla, Les Sylphides by F. Chopin, Bolero by M. Ravel, La boheme bi G. Puccini, The Wall by R. Waters and Doctor Zhivago by K. Volkov.
The most famous Bulgarian ballet artists and choreographers have worked with the ballet troupe of the Varna Opera – Asen Gavrilov, Kalina Bogoeva, Margarita Arnaudova, Zhelka Tabakova, Boryana Sechanova, Konstantin Uralski and Prof. Petar Lukanov, as well as ballet masters from abroad – Renato Greco, Tarek Assam, Konstantin Uralski and Servey Bobrov.
The ballet troupe of the Varna Opera has had independent events and participations in opera spectacles in Greece, Russia, India, Egypt, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Finland and Abu Dhabi. Ekaterina Cheshmedzheva has been the artistic manager of the ballet troupe for the period 1999-2014.
Since 2014 Svetlana Tonsheva is an artistic manager of the ballet troupe; the repetitor of the troupe is Gergana Karaatanasova.