With "Petrushka" and "The Firebird" the Sofia Opera and Ballet celebrates 140 years since the birth of Igor Stravinsky
04 Mar 2022Sofia Opera and Ballet

With "Petrushka" and "The Firebird" the Sofia Opera and Ballet celebrates 140 years since the birth of Igor Stravinsky

"In my life as a composer, I learned mainly from my own mistakes, not from sources of wisdom and knowledge."

This year marks the 140th Anniversary of Igor Stravinsky. Defined as one of the most significant figures of the twentieth century, the composer works in many musical genres, constantly experimenting, looking for new forms of expression and styles.

In his active creative years Stravinsky was living in France, Switzerland, USA and this further enriched his musical expression. The composer worked practically in all musical styles known during this period, and each of his new works turned into a significant cultural event and provoked controversy and extreme divergent opinions and assessments.

Igor Stravinsky became world famous with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev for his ballet troupe – "The Firebird" (1910), "Petrushka" (1911) and "Le Sacre du Printemps" (1913).

These three musical works belong to the so-called Russian period of the composer. They provoked the audience and the critics in an unprecedented until then way and led to the creation of a new musical style, which later became known as "neoclassicism". Thus began the neoclassical period of the composer, when in his creative pursuits he rethought the musical traditions of the XVIII century and paid homage to classics such as Tchaikovsky and Bach.

After the Second World War, a new avant-garde style appeared in music, which introduced different and non-standard means of expression. Then Stravinsky entered his third – "serial" period, using a series of nonrepeating sounds as the main compositional element in his works.

No other composer of the XX century is so diverse in his work, with such an individual and distinctive musical expression. His work has influenced generations of young composers around the world. Throughout his creative life, Igor Stravinsky believed that the feeling was leading, both for the artist and the audience, and not understanding or knowledge:

"The work of a composer is a process of perception, not of comprehension. He catches, selects, combines, but to the very end he does not realize when the meanings of different kind and sense arise in his work."

The Sofia Opera and Ballet will present to its audience on two dates the one-act ballets "Petrushka" and "The Firebird" – on the 18th at 19:00 h and on 20 March at 16:00 h.

We are expecting you!