The Novosibirsk state academic opera and ballet theatre went on tour more than two hundred fifty times. The theatre’s tour geography comprises thirty countries and thirty Russian towns; besides, some towns the company has visited several times.
The company went on its first tour in 1949. Opera company and the orchestra traveled to the Kuzbass region. The company performed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin on the venues of this mining country: 26th October in Stalinsk (Novokuznetsk), 27th October in Prokopievsk, 29th October in Kemerovo. An outstanding Russian opera singer Ivan Kozlovsky participated in the young company’s guest performances. The legendary tenor performed Lensky, one of his most distinguished parts.
In June 1951 the company went on its first big tour. This time the destination was set on the Far East region and the touring company consisted of opera and ballet companies along with the orchestra, two hundred fifty people in total. For three months the artists of our companies have been introducing their creative work to the Far East audience. One hundred thirty three shows were given during that time, and attended by more than one hundred thousand viewers. Besides that, the Novosibirsk performers participated in more than thirty radio programs, gave a number of concerts and recitals.
The tour repertoire included seventeen productions: classical operas and ballets, along with soviet composers’ pieces: operas Ruslan and Ludmila by Glinka, Dargomyzhsky’s Rusalka, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Queen of Spades, Cherevichki, Krasev’s Morozko (Father Frost), Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, Bizet’s Carmen, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Verdi’s La Traviata, Rigoletto, Un Ballo in Maschera, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville; ballets The Swan Lake and The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky, Glière’s Red Poppy.
All seventeen productions required crafting new scenery since the majority of the tour venues were a lot smaller than the Novosibirsk theatre’s stage. All sets needed to be made smaller. The overall weight of sets sent to Far East equaled one hundred fifty tons.
The first town in the tour schedule was Khabarovsk, where the Novosibirsk company gave a few extra performances in 25-31 July at factories’ community centers on top of all scheduled shows. Later on the administration of the Far East district asked to give a few more shows. Members of the company were not given any additional allowance and set off to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where they gave five opera performances, and a number of concerts at the town’s factories. Every day the artists held artistic meetings and recitals. As a sign of appreciation the Communist Party of the Soviet Union City Committee and the Executive Committee of Komsomolsk-on-Amur made a decision to award the Novosibirsk company with the title Honored Developer of Komsomolsk.
In 18-23 September the company gave a number of shows in Vladivostok and on Russky Island in Nakhodka bay. According to the official records of that period “the Novosibirsk company was the first one to ever give an opera performance in Nakhodka bay, where the artists were transported by combat ship. The classes were canceled for two days in order to get the students acquainted with such art form as opera”.
In 1951 the Novosibirsk company started touring on a regular basis, and the Far East became one of the main touring destinations. The Novosibirsk company toured to the Far East towns in 1954, 1966, 1978, 1986, 1989, 2012 and 2014.
