The production was mounted by the Choral Ensemble of Soloists Tebe Poem (Krasnoyarsk), directed by the Honoured Artist of Russia Konstantin Yakobson.
It premiered in Krasnoyarsk on 24 January, 2015, at the closing of the Winter Surikov Festival of Art (Stage Director - the Honored Artist of Russia Vasily Vavilov) and received rave reviews in the press and, more importantly, a positive response from the author, Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin, who for 8 years on numerous occasions had expressed his desire to see a stage version of his work. After watching a video of the Krasnoyarsk production, he wrote to Konstantin Yakobson:
A huge emotional impression, everything without exception is beyond all praise. What gigantic work you have done to achieve such a powerful outburst of feelings through musical intonation! My sincere congratulations to everybody involved. And my author’s gratitude… To date, the production by the Krasnoyarsk Ensemble has been the only stage version of Boyarina Morozova. The producers have found the best possible form of staging the Russian choral opera - a choral theatre. It is the area in which the Tebe Poem Choral Ensemble has been quite successfully working for a long time. It was not without a reason that both the audience and critics mentioned the power and might of the artistic impact of the production, because of which images of Shchedrin’s music and events of the Russian history, presented through the prism of the characters’ personal emotions, are felt deeper, like a revelation. A laconic set design of the production reflects the principal accents of Shchedrin’s opera and gives the audience a pause for thought about the history of the Russian people, in which tragic events become a lesson for future generations.
