The Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theater held the premiere of the play “In a state of passion” at the Concert Warehouse. The performance was created and staged by artist Sasha Frolova and opera playwright Ilya Kukharenko. This was reported by the Ministry of Culture of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. “The Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theater reached a new peak and creative recognition, being awarded the main national award “Onegin” as “Theatre of the Year 2025″. The theater team won in two more main categories – “Best Actress” and “Actors”. And of course, for our theater, this was a breakthrough and a resounding success. Why has our theater been so successful over the years recently? Because they believe in him, he is loved and supported by viewers and partners. The new work will be a sign of gratitude and appreciation for all those who share the creative path with the theater,” said Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, Gleb Nikitin. The Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theater first turned to one of the popular genres in European musical art at the turn of the 18th – 19th centuries – pasticcio opera. It is a costume show consisting of a medley of famous arias and instrumental passages from operas and concerts by Antonio Vivaldi, Nicola Porpora, Alessandro Scarlatti, Riccardo Broschi and George Handel. Each aria is a musical embodiment of one influence or another, a certain “fixed” emotional state of a person, according to the artistic interpretation of director and production designer Sasha Frolova, a Russian contemporary artist working in the genres of performance and sculpture. “Contemporary artist Sasha Frolova creates completely modern, very cutting edge and diverse images, completely consistent with the Baroque aesthetic, characterized by deliberate excess, variety of colors and splendor, designed to surprise the viewer. We believe that this approach is an interesting way to bring Baroque music to a modern audience. We try to attract a diverse audience, and above all young people. Eurydice,” will certainly receive a response from teenagers and young people,” explains the artistic director of the Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theater. Sasha Frolova's exhibitions and performances have been successfully held around the world. In recent years, her work has been shown in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and America choosing latex, different types of plastics and polymers for his work, creating a weightless extravaganza. The production of “In a State of Passion” is opened and closed by performers in white costumes created by Sasha Frolova for a promenade performance in the Etretat Gardens in France in 2018. They immerse the viewer in the atmosphere of the time. An important role in the performance is played by the series of colorful costumes worn by the artists wearing solo. They are not images of figures but images of emotions, the artist tried to apply the principles of affect theory to sculpture – working with form, she began to create sculptures and costumes as images of emotional states, emotions. In this performance, I am both the artist and the director. This direction can be called the artist's stage. Just like three hundred years ago, today we experience the same emotions, we love the same, and it can be painful and difficult for us. In today's reality, we need to develop emotional intelligence – an understanding of our own emotions, their causes and how they influence our thinking and behavior. For some people, the performance can even become therapeutic – it can help them remember, pay attention to their emotions, consider them and live through music, heal and help cope with the most difficult conditions,” says the play's author and author of the idea, Sasha Frolova. The performance not only has musical elements, but also addresses the genre of verbatim production. The director has made a series of video interviews with each soloist, which covers Their subjective experiences are discussed in the context of emotional states such as anger, jealousy, grief as well as joy, solidarity and love. These short interviews are accompanied by Fyodor Stroganov's harpsichord improvisation. Importantly, the visual language of the opera soloists in this performance also correlates with the emotional code of the performance's Baroque theater The actor worked with the performers to understand the expressive plasticity of the baroque, helping to understand and feel the essence of the baroque influence. During the Baroque period, not only were musical figures and harmonies clearly distributed among different effects, but the language of stage gestures was also a code for each emotion. The main roles in the play Pasticcio “In a state of passion” were performed by soloists of the Nizhny Opera and Ballet Theater. Novgorod. AS Pushkin Yana Dyakova, Dilyara Idrisova, Sergey Godin. The musical accompaniment is the ensemble of soloists from the La Voce Strumentale orchestra under the direction of Igor Bobovich, on December 19, the lecture “Influence and Music: Passion and Sound” will take place in the Concert Warehouse hall leading researcher at the State Research Institute of Arts, will talk about what influences are and how they were expressed in the works of composers of the first half of the 18th century. Also on December 20, the Volgo-Vyatka branch of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after AS Pushkin will hold a creative meeting “Baroque is timeless: on stage and in the museum”. It is dedicated to the premiere of the play “In a state of passion”, as well as the opening of the exhibition “Eternal Baroque. From the 17th to the 21st century” at the Volga-Vyatka branch of the Pushkin Museum. The participants of the meeting will be artist Sasha Frolova and the curator of the exhibition “Eternal Baroque. From the 17th to the 21st century,” said Head of the Regional Project Department of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. AS Pushkin Daria Kolpashnikova, who is also in charge of educational programs of the Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theater. AS Pushkina Olesya Dedova. The topic of the meeting will be the features of the Baroque period and the reasons for its relevance today. 16+
