Director Mitja Bervar noted at the presentation that the opera and ballet house had been facing major financial and organizational trouble in the recent years, but that the completed renovation of the opera house end of last year had given the entire ensemble new impetus after it had spent six years in make-do conditions.
Artistic director Milivoj Šurbek added that it was a miracle the ensemble did not “fall apart completely” in the recent years of agony, stressing that the season could finally be planned to run smoothly.
The ballet season will open with a ballet night in September dedicated to the 130th birthday of composer Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky.
After the success of this season’s Giselle by Adolphe Adam, the ensemble will put on another classic in the coming season. The choreography for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty will be prepared by the ballet ensemble’s director Irek Mukhamedov.
The opera ensemble will start the new season with Jani Golob’s new Slovenian opera “Ljubezen kapital” (Love Capital), which will be staged for the first time ever on 27 June as part of the 60th Ljubljana Summer Festival.
Next year will be marked by Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). The ensemble will stage Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and hopes to add Verdi’s Rigoletto to the repeats of his La Traviata and Nabucco from this season.
The programme for the next season also features “Gorenjski slavček” (The Nightingale of Gorenjsko), a Slovenian romantic opera by Anton Foerster, and Johann Christian Bach’s lyrical tragedy Amadis de Gaule in a major coproduction with Palazzetto Bru Zane of Venice, the Versailles Royal Opera and the Opera Comique of Paris.
