Some people in Perm' told me "Bol'shoi", but it might be they were wrong, or were trying to impress a foreigner with the name "Bolshoi" - I'll check when I'm there soon, T-P! The Perm' Opera had the unofficial nickname "the opera lab" in the 1960s and 70s, because of the amount of new work they did. They still do a huge amount of new pieces, mostly by Russian composers. They performed Rodion Schedrin's "Lolita" in 2005 (it was a commission for Swedish National Opera, but Perm' gave the first Russian performance of the piece) and came to Moscow to give one performance of the piece. Frankly I hated it, but you had to admire the technical ability of the performers to even be able to perform it at all - it must be one of the most difficult opera scores imaginable. I hope "Dr Zhivago" isn't similar to this
(They also premiered an opera last year called "Anastasia", about the fate of the Romanov Princess of the same name - I'm afraid I forget who composed it, and since I couldn't get to Perm', I didn't see or hear it).
Back "on topic", however, I wonder what kind of a ballet can be made out of the story of "Onegin"? Since it's one of the most famous epic-romantic poems in Russian, the idea of staging it without its words seems strange to me? What's the score of this ballet - is it Tchaikovsky's rearranged music? I have to say that the slash-and-burn attitude dance companies have to musical scores often leaves me appalled. Some of the world's very worst music, and worst arrangements, can be found in ballet theatres
So that this remark isn't merely a rant, I'll give an example - Rodion Schedrin's grim ballet score for "Carmen", which is just Bizet's music rearranged for strings and tuned/untuned percussion. Schedrin has the audacity to name himself as the "composer", rather than arranger, of this score.
