Valery Kritskov Valery Kritskov Valery Kritskov is a Russian conductor who used to take conducting lessons at the Moscow Institute of Culture which were taught by Kirill Tikhonov. He graduated from there in 1988 and then worked in Moscow-based Helikon Opera till he got employed with Novaya Opera in 2002. While there, he conducted many operas including Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Snow Maiden" and "The Tsar’s Bride" as well as Anton Rubinstein's "The Demon" and Tchaikovsky's "The Maid of Orleans". He also conducted works by the Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" and Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" and German such as Richard
Paulo Szot studied at Jagiellonian University in Poland. He began singing professionally in 1990 with the National Song & Dance Ensemble "Śląsk". Later, he made his professional opera debut in a production of "Il barbiere di Siviglia" at the Municipal Theatre of São Paulo in 1997. Since then, he has performed with the New York City Opera, the Palm Beach Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Opéra de Marseille, and Vlaamse Opera, among others, in such operas as "L'elisir d'amore", "La bohème", "Don Giovanni", "Cavalleria rusticana", "Pagliacci", "Carmen", "Così fan tutte", "Le nozze di Figaro" and "Maria Golovin". In March 2010 he made