— Paphos company breaks even with CYP 470,000 budget
The world-famous Mariinsky theatre company from St. Petersburg will stage Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Un Ballo in Maschera” during a three-day festival in Paphos in September that will transform the harbour castle into the biggest open-air stage, as it does every year.
The eighth annual Paphos Aphrodite Festival is being upgraded this year to include the Russian company known during the Soviet era as the Kirov that will perform what is known as “the most operatic of operas”.
The premises of the Mariinsky will undergo a major renovation from September that has allowed both the theatre and the ballet company to embark on a worldwide tour that will include Munich, London and New York.
“This will be the largest single event on the Cyprus cultural scene,” said Levon Bakunts, an official of the Kolizey Center that is representing the Mariinksy on its international tour.
“It is a leap upwards for the Paphos festival,” he added. “The Mariinsky is synonymous with excellence and perfection.”
Bakunts added that this opera is a new production as it only premiered in St. Petersburg in February.
They will be joined by two Cypriots — soprano Stella Georgiou who lives in Bologna and tenor Antonis Koutroupis who recently returned from St. Petersburg.
Set in Boston in the early colonial days, the opera’s main performers are tenor Vsevolod Grivnov, baritone Vasily Gerello, soprano Irina Gordei and mezzo-soprano Larisa Diadkova.
The three-act opera will have a total running time of 135 minutes and with two intervals, should go for just under three hours.
Alexander Scherbakov, the Chargé des Affaires of the Russian Federation embassy in Nicosia, said that this will be a great opportunity for the Russian community in Cyprus as well.
“Even in Russia it is difficult to go to see the Mariinsky because of the great demand in theatre and ballet tickets,” he added.
In theory, at least, finding tickets should not be a problem.
However, as 1200 of the 7500 available tickets have already been sold and a further 900 reserved, time is running short, said Savvas Vergas, the acting Mayor of Paphos and chairman of the Paphos Aphrodite Festival Cyprus Ltd., a public-interest company jointly owned by the municipalities of Paphos, Yeroskipou and Peyia, as well as the local hoteliers association and the Paphos Chamber of Commerce.
Vergas added that during the ten days leading up to the opera weekend of September 1, 2 and 3, business is up in the quality hotels and restaurants.
“This proves that our investment in this event has been wise as it helps keep the quality standards of tourism in Paphos very high.”
PAFC’s chief coordinator, Themis Philippides, said that the majority, or some 60% of tickets are sold in Cyprus, as was evident from last year’s “La Traviata” staged by the Polish National Opera.
But ticket sales alone, at CYP 20 to 45, are not enough to cover the production expenses with an increased budget this year of CYP 470,000, due to the higher costs of hiring the Mariinsky.
“Tickets sales account for some CYP 200,000 in revenue and the state provides us with an annual grant of CYP 175,000. The rest is covered from sponsorship and other merchandising agreements,” said Philippides, who added that in the past few years the PAFC has been breaking even.
Apart from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Commerce and Tourism, the other main sponsors are the Cyprus Tourism Organisation, the Russian Commercial Bank (Cyprus), the Electricity Authority of Cyprus. It is also being supported by the Bank of Cyprus American Express, Evresis Call Centre, Kanika Hotels’ Alexander the Great, state broadcaster CyBC and Politis newspaper.
Tickets are available from PAFC on 26 82228 or its website www.pafc.com.cy, Evresis’ hotline on 8000-8005, as well as the municipal theatre of Strovolos and the Rialto theatre in Limassol.
