October Festival

The Festival of Musical Theatres «To See Music» will feature for the first time the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus. On 14 and 15 October, our company will present a performance of Tchaikovsky’s opera The Maid of Orleans, which premiered last season, on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia as part of the tenth anniversary edition of the festival.

The festival will take place at various venues across Moscow from September to December 2025, bringing together approximately 40 performances from over 20 Russian musical theatres and companies from the CIS countries, including productions by theatres in Bashkiria, Buryatia, Udmurtia, the Komi Republic, and Chuvashia, as well as by the Musical Comedy Theatre of Uzbekistan and the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus.

The concept of the festival emerged from the efforts of the Association of Musical Theatres (AMT), which currently comprises over seventy major musical theatres in Russia and numerous theatres across the CIS, including the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus. In 2014, the artistic director of the Natalia Sats Moscow Children's Musical Theatre, Georgiy Isaakyan, was elected president of the association. (He is the director of the production of The Maid of Orleans on the Belarusian stage.) “The goal of this festival is to provide every theatre, regardless of its size, location, or level of recognition, with the opportunity to showcase its most significant production. Rather than competing with one another, these theatres are encouraged to collaborate and engage in mutual support,” Georgiy Isaakyan says.

It is The Maid of Orleans that will open the 93rd season at the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus. On 4 September, the title role will be performed by the Honoured Artist of the Republic of Belarus Oksana Volkova, and on 5 September by the laureate of international competitions Daria Gorozhanko. Artem Makarov will conduct both evenings.

It is worth noting that the production team includes: artistic director of the theatre, People's Artist of Bashkortostan Artem Makarov as musical director; People's Artist of Russia, artistic director of the Natalia Sats Moscow Children's Musical Theatre Georgiy Isaakyan as director; Alexey Tregubov as designer; principal chorus master of the theatre, People's Artist of Belarus Nina Lomanovich as chorus master; Honoured Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation Irina Vtornikova as lighting designer; Arina Shlykova as computer graphics and video designer.