An opera about the poisoning of ex-FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko will be staged in the UK

In 2020, The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko, an opera about the poisoning of a former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer, will be staged in the UK. It is reported by The Times.

The Grange Park Opera Company, led by Wasfi Kani, is working on the production. According to her, they received permission from the widow of the deceased officer, Marina Litvinenko, as well as a video from the family archive. Kani promised that the production would not deliberately distort the biography of the deceased.

The part of Litvinenko will be performed by tenor Adrian Dwyner. The opera will also include the characters of his widow Marina, Boris Berezovsky and Andrei Lugovoy, who plays the role of a murderer in the production. The music for the production was written by Anthony Bolton. The organizers note that he used fragments of the Russian military march, the anthem of the Russian national football team and the anthem of Chechnya.

Recall that this year London's Old Vic Theater will also host the premiere of a play about the death of an ex-FSB agent based on the book by journalist Luke Harding "Very Expensive Poison".

Litvinenko was arrested in 1999 in Moscow on charges of abuse of power. Then he was acquitted, but the FSB officers in the courtroom immediately arrested him on another criminal case. In 2000, the prosecution was stopped for lack of corpus delicti, but on the same day a third case was brought against him. Litvinenko was released on bail, after which he left for the UK, having received political asylum.

In 2006, a former FSB agent died in London, radioactive polonium was found in his body. British investigators believe that State Duma deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party Andrey Lugovoy and businessman Dmitry Kovtun were involved in his death. In Russia, they say that the investigation of the case in the UK is politically motivated.