The first major ballet event in the festive jubilee programme celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Stara Zagora Opera is the premiere of "Parisian Nights", set to music by Weber, Rachmaninoff and Offenbach. The libretto, choreography and staging are by internationally acclaimed Bulgarian artist Donvena Pandoursky. The sets and costumes are by the renowned Belarusian artist Pavel Shappo. The premiere performances will take place on 29 and 30 April 2025, in honour of the International Day of Dance.

The music of these three great composers is choreographically transformed into a four-part nocturnal fantasy in Paris - dreamed, imagined or truly experienced - through four different phases of a human life. The main character is portrayed as a young girl, a maiden, a young woman, and finally - in the segment "Parisian Revelry", set to the music of Jacques Offenbach—a mature woman trying to dull her fear of aging in the euphoria of Parisian nightlife.

The performance features distinguished soloists from Stara Zagora: Anelia Dimitrova, Romina Slavova, Fiordi Lloha and Tomoki Ishigo.

Donvena Pandoursky, the creator of Parisian Nights, was born in Sofia. She graduated from the National School of Dance Art in 1978 and danced with the Sofia Opera Ballet and the prestigious modern ballet company "Arabesque". In 1988 she graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg as a ballet director. Since 1989 she has lived in Germany, where she has worked with some of the most prestigious ballet companies, including the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm, the Gothenburg Opera Ballet, the Mariinsky Theatre and the London City Ballet. In 2023 she founded the Westfälische Ballett-Akademie in Ascheberg, Germany, of which she is the artistic director.