The Epiphany Festival at Novaya Opera presents a literary and musical composition dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the birth of the Novaya Opera’s founder Evgeny Vladimirovich Kolobov

I envy only poets/ Who have escaped to the countryside,/ Taking pieces of passionless paper,/A pencil and a chest full of heartfelt songs and light/.These somewhat ironic lines, written in 1997, express Kolobov’s deep and wholehearted love of literature. The outstanding conductor was close with many writers and literary scholars. He used every chance to share his love with his colleagues. That creative dialogue prompted ideas for musical performances. In Kolobov’s lifetime, there were literary and musical evenings and meetings with people of letters at the Novaya Opera. Among guests of these evenings were the literary scholars Vladimir Lakshin, Lev Anninsky, and Valentin Nepomnyashchy, the writer Yuri Nagibin, the poet Andrey Voznesensky, the actress and writer Alla Demidova. Add to this Kolobov’s intimate friendship with the writer Viktor Astafiev. The result of their spiritual alliance, the book Assonance, will be the main linking element of the literary and musical evening at the Novaya Opera.

The concert programme will comprise Kolobov’s favorite pieces including Schubert’s Ave Maria, Tchaikovsky’s Legend and I bless you, forests, Rachmaninoff’s Don’t Sing, My Beauty…, We Met Yesterday, It Hurts; excerpts from Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Bellini’s Norma, Verdi’s Rigoletto, and Rossini’s L'italiana in Algeri.