СHORUS

The choir of the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Republic of Belarus passed a glorious 70 year way of its professional improvement and today it is one of the leading choir teams of the country.
A major contribution to its formation was brought by the National artist of Belarus Aleksey Kogadeev (1926-1997), who headed the team since 1960 till 1993. Since 1993 the chief choirmaster is People's Aartist  of Belarus Nina Lomanovich.
Today the choir of the theatre consists of more than 70 highly professional musicians. The considerable part today is the creative youth – seniors of the vocal department of the Belarussian State Academy of Music.
Marvelous performance of Requiem by G.Verdi, Requiem by W.A.Mozart, of the German Requiem by I.Brahms, of the “choral” operas assisted the rise in professional skills of the artists of the choir – “Prince Igor” by A.Borodin, “Nabucco” and “Turandot” by G.Verdi, “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshina” by M.Mussorgsky. Among the best works of the choir are operas “Aida”, “A Masked Ball”, “Il Trovatore” by G.Verdi, “Carmen” by G.Bizet, “The Queen of Spades” by P.Tchaikovsky, it participates in ballet performances “Carmina Burana” (C.Orff) and “Passions” (A.Mdivani) etc.
In the repertoire of the choir there are works of cantata and oratoria genre “Spring” S.Rachmaninoff, “Songs of Kursk” by Georgy Sviridov, opera oratoria “King Oedipus” by I.Stravinsky. Solo concert programmes include choir a cappella (sacred music, music of Russian and Soviet composers).
The marvelous sounding of the choir became one of the components of the success of the opera troupe on tour in Brazil, Germany, Israel, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Thailand.
In publications of foreign press about the performance of Belarussian opera on the festival “Classic Openair” in Solothurn (Switzerland) the choir was called one of the main “heroes” of the festival.