On the first day of the Elena Obraztsova International Festival of Classical Music “Carmen” – November 30 – all the children’s art schools of Satka Municipal District and Satka’s Central City Library each received a copy of the two-volume book The Opera Ball of Elena Obraztsova by Mikhail Pashchenko published by the 85th anniversary of the singer’s birth as a gift.

Mikhail Pashchenko’s book is based on the material available at the Elena Obraztsova Foundation (the charitable foundation for support of musical art). This unique book contains excerpts from personal journals and letters of the great opera singer, stage director and teacher as well as quotes from articles about her published in foreign media, and from interviews with her friends and colleagues. The two volumes put together over 700 archive photographs. Some details about Elena Obraztsova’s complicated opera journey are disclosed for the first time, including some facts about the history of the Bolshoi Theater and the world opera, connected with her name.

The document-based biography published by the publishing house Boslen is a veritable treasure, which, thanks to Magnezit Group and the Sobranie Cultural Initiatives Support & Preservation Foundation, is now available to residents of the Satka District as well.

- I believe that the two-volume book The Opera Ball of Elena Obraztsova will be useful not just for studying but as a book that could inspire young talent in our district for reaching new heights and living up to their potential,” remarked Anton Migashkin, Deputy Technical Director of Magnezit Group as he handed the book over to Elena Subbotina, the Head of the Culture Department of Satka Municipal District. And since the event took place on the first day of the festival, during the concert The Crescendo of Kindness, he congratulated everyone present on the remarkable start of the musical festival and thanked Aleksey Teksler, the Governor of Chelyabinsk Region, and Sergei Korostelyov, President of Magnezit Group and the initiator of the Elena Obraztsova International Festival of Classical Music “Carmen”, for their support. 

- “Our festival has again proven its significance for development of cultural life in Chelyabinsk Region. It unites talented people and inspires the new generation of musicians; its offers everyone living in South Urals area the chance to enjoy masterpieces of Russian and world art,” Anton Migashkin added. - “On behalf of the participants and the audience, I wish for the festival to follow the philosophy of multi-faceted creativity of Elena Obraztsova, a great opera singer, stage director and teacher, as its “tuning fork” and the love for and the memory of her unique talent as its guiding light!”

Source: Magnezitovets Photo by Vasily Maksimov.