Many famous artists started their career in Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, among them Yuri Gulayev, Anatoliy Solovyanenko, Nickolay Momot, Valentin Zemlyanskiy,http://donetsk-opera-ballet.org/index.php?module=history Alexander Korobeychenko and others - they were the People's artists of Ukraine. The Theatre was named after prominent opera tenor Anatoliy Solovyanenko, awardee of Taras Shevchenko and Lenin Prizes, who was born in Donetsk. In different years on the stage of Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre such stars of Soviet Union art danced and sang, as Ivan Kozlovsky and Sergei Lemeshev, Maria Bieshu, Olga Lepeshinskaya, Marina Semenova, Klavdiya Shulzhenko and many others.
