Moscow - A ballet based on the Russian classic The Master and Margarita by Romanian-born Slovenian choreographer Edward Clug will open at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow this evening, with four reruns scheduled until 5 December.

Clug, the artistic director for ballet at the Slovenian SNG Maribor national theatre, has conceived the production together with a team he has worked with for a number of years.

The music was written by the late Russian composer Alfred Schnittke and by Clug's Slovenian composer Milko Lazar, with Marko Japelj as set designer and Leo Kulaš as costume designer.

Three dancers were cast for the role of Master and three for Margarita: Denis Savin, Igor Tsvirko and Artem Ovcharenko, and Olga Smirnova, Ekaterina Krisanova and Maria Vinogradova, respectively.

Clug has worked with the Bolshoi Theatre before, having put on stage Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka ballet in 2018, while his Slovenian production of Peer Gynt sold out at the Bolshoi in 2019.

Following these successes, Bolshoi ballet director Mahar Vaziev invited him to do another show, with Clug choosing Mikhail Bulgakov novel to the theatre's surprise, the newspaper Večer reported.