Japanese dancer Haruka Sassa’s path to Berlin was anything but planned. After years in Japan, the United States, Sweden and Norway, she arrived at Staatsballett Berlin almost spontaneously — first as a soloist, and soon after as a principal dancer.

At VOO Space in Berlin, the interdisciplinary project Leonis Works x VOO Space brought together contemporary art, music, and performance. The highlight of the evening was the world premiere of AGAPE, a new performance conceived and choreographed by Renato De Leon.

During the Moscow International Ballet Competition, the editorial team of Voci dell’Opera decided to celebrate not only the prize winners, but also the artists who especially moved us with their talent, stage presence, and sincerity.

Alexey Orokhovsky and Yana Peneva represent the USA, but today both are associated with the Mariinsky Theatre, where they are soloists. At the competition, they chose an emphatically classical repertoire, striving to show the clarity of style and academic culture that the Mariinsky school brings.

After the XV International Ballet Competition came to an end, Marmus Auguste’s bronze medal became an important event not only for the artist himself, but also for the Hungarian National Ballet, which he represents. The young dancer went through several rounds, demanding programs, and growing competitive pressure while preserving what matters most: stage expressiveness, technical focus, and the ability to remain fully inside the character.

On July 4, Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin presented the premiere of a new production of Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera Samson et Dalila — a work that had already been part of the theatre’s repertoire. The leading roles were performed by Roberto Alagna and Aigul Akhmetshina, for whom the role of Dalila marked her debut on the stage of Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

The Korean pair Kim Min-jin and Lee Kang-won became one of the brightest impressions of the XV International Ballet Competition. Their performances were received with great enthusiasm, and the artists were called for an encore — a rare and truly phenomenal moment for a competition stage.

From June 25 to 28, 2026, the premiere series of Anna Karenina, a ballet set to music by Ilya Demutsky and staged by Maxim Sevagin, took place on the Main Stage of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre. The premiere was presented as part of the 2026 Cherry Forest Open Arts Festival.

On June 20, 2026, the ancient theatre of Epidaurus once again became a place of operatic history. On the opening day of the Athens Epidaurus Festival, ten thousand spectators gathered under the open sky to witness the return of Luigi Cherubini’s Medea — the production that, 65 years earlier, had turned opera in Greece into an event of global importance. It was here, in 1961, that Maria Callas created one of her legendary stage heroines in Alexis Minotis’s production, with set

We spoke with Auguste Marmus and Rachel Pimentel Quintão about what it means to step onto the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, how a competition performance differs from a regular production, how to find a balance between technique and artistry, and which roles they dream of performing in the future.