The Bolshoi Theatre's Main Stage is going to be reconstructed. With this in view the Bolshoi Company is planning fewer premieres for the upcoming 230th season. On the New Stage the spectators will have to be happy with three opera premiers and two ballet ones. Such a decision implies that each new work by the company is ñertain to be in the limelight and to stir the interest of the public and critics while the theatre will be able to work smoothly in the non too comfortable circumstances of reconstruction and to concentrate on its tour itineraries.

The company is going to tour extensively. In October they will perform Giselle and Spartacus in South Korea; in April, 2006 - Swan Lake and Spartacus in Great Britain, in May La Fille du Pharaoh and La Bayadere will go to Japan. Besides the Bolshoi Ballet will perform their version of Giselle in Brussels in February 2006 and will also participate in the Savonlinna Ballet Festival, which is to take place in June. As for the Bolshoi Opera, it will go abroad only in July, next year, to the USA where they will be performing at the Metropolitan Opera. Russian provinces are not forgotten either. In February the Bolshoi is going to tour in Rostov-on-Don. The tours in other cities are being discussed as well.

The first premiere is Mozart’s Magic Flute on 7 October. The Bolshoi's turning to this last Mozart’s opera is connected with the future 250-year anniversary of the great Austrian composer, which is to be celebrated by the whole music world in 2006. The opera will be staged by a glorious English director Graham Vic together with his constant co-author the artist Paul Brown. This tandem is well known for their numerous stagings for La Scala, Opera de Paris, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden. Next summer Vic and Brown will show another version of Magic Flute as part of the Salzburg Festival. Meanwhile at the Bolshoi the premiere is to be conducted by authoritative Stuart Bedford, whose profound knowledge of Mozart’s and Britten’s operas and good experience behind has won him world fame.

The premiere of one-evening version of Prokofiev’s War and Peace planned for December will be devoted to the commemoration of the Great Victory's 60th anniversary. Better late than never as the proverb says…. The producers are superstars with no exception: Ìstislav Rostropovich (Music Director), Boris Pokrovsky (Artistic Director), Ivan Popovsky (Director), Alexandr Borovsky (Designer). This project is meant to get together the Grand opera style Patriarchs and the younger but esteemed and promising masters, whose cooperation will undoubtedly contribute to the tradition of passing the heritage on to the younger generation. Popovsky, a Russianized Macedonian, works for "Petr Fomenko’s Studio" as producer and also tries staging operas - Eugene Onegin for the Opera Theatre of Lille in 1997 and The Tsar’s Bride for the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Singing Centre in 2003. The desire to enrich the repertoire with one more ÕÕth century masterpiece is beyond reproach, but how this full-fledged opera, packed with characters (its only principals’ number is more than fifty!), will be accommodated on the intimate New Stage is highly questionable.

The last on the list of opera novelties will be Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky (to be premiered on May 25, 2006). This highly basic opera will be staged by most fashionable Dmitry Chernyakov, who is today on the crest of the Mass Media wave, a Stanislavsky Prize winner and the owner of three Golden Masks. For those who happened to watch his Life for the Tsar at the Mariinsky and Àida at the Novosibirsk Opera Theatre it is as clear as day that Chernyakov's interpretation as well as scenic design are going to be daring and extremely disputable again. Alexandr Vedernikov, the Bolshoi's chief conductor, will also work in Înegin. The old version by Boris Pokrovsky, probably, will be buried together with the old life of the historic building.

In the winter of 2006 the exclusive ballet Cinderella, Yury Posokhov's cooking on Prokofiev's musical broth, will be ready to serve. It is symbolic that the world premiere of this ballet in Rostislav Zakharov's choreography was held at the Bolshoi Theatre, too, as soon as the II World War was over in 1945. Then the title role performer was Olga Lepeshinskaya. Posokhov, the former Bolshoi dancer and later Danish Royal Ballet and Ballet of San Francisco premier, seems to have seriously decided to go up the career ladder as choreographer. Last spring he transferred on the New Stage his chamber ballet created in America – Magrittomania – and now will explore the larger format. The new ballet, despite its fairy-tale title, is addressed to the adult audience. The premiere is to take place on February the 2nd.

Staging The Golden Age will complete the unique cycle All ballets by Dmitry Shostakovich dated to the 100th anniversary of the outstanding Soviet composer's birth. All pros and cons considered, Àlexey Ratmansky, the choreographer of The Bright Stream and Bolt, decided to turn to his predecessor Yury Grigorovich. The Master didn't reject the offer of the younger colleague. The product is going to differ from the three-act version of 1982. It will be a fresh ballet in two acts that was recently staged by Grigorovich for the Krasnodar Ballet. The wonderful sets and costumes by Simon Virsaladze remain unchanged. Since March 23, 2006 The Golden Age will adorn the Bolshoi Theatre posters.

Starting from the next season on the Bolshoi Opera will be offering 'the Subscription for symphony orchestra and choir'. On the 5th of October Alexandr Vedernikov will be conducting the first act of Die Walkure and Act II of Parsifal by Wagner, in the program will be participating: mega-star Waltraud Meier, the German mezzo-soprano, Austrian Christopher Wentris, tenor, and Pablo Hunk, a bass-baritone from Great Britain. On November 7 Vedernikov will conduct The Requiem by G. Verdi with the solos sung by Elena Zelenskaya, Elena Manistina, Maxim Paster and Mikhail Kazakov. The above-mentioned tenor and bass are participating in Shostakovich's Song about Woods on the 16th of February, 2006. On March 29 as part of the subscription the theatre choir will perform The Vespers (Vsenoshchnoye Bdenie) by Rakhmaninov with Valery Borisov conducting the choir. And to conclude the subscription program the orchestra will play the Ninth Symphony by Bruckner, the conductor - Gunther Herbig from Germany. All the concerts will be held in the Big Hall of Moscow State Conservatoire. Extra subscription on January 26, 2006 on the New Stage of the Boshoi Angela Denoke, a famous German soprano, whose concert was expected this spring, will sing Berg's music.