As Valentina Calestru takes to the stage for tonight's production of Tosca at the Fairfield, disaster, endurance and adversity will be foremost in her mind. But this is no opera plot - this is just the journey to Croydon.

For three days last week Valentina and 90 of her colleagues were trapped in an avalanche, high up in the mountainous passes on the Romanian Moldovian border.

Running short of food, the world-renowned singers and musicians had to dig themselves and their coaches out of a snowdrift in sub-zero temperatures.

It took them 16 hours to clear an eight kilometre stretch of road and reach a telephone.

On board the freezing buses were international stars from the Bolshoi Opera, the Mariinsky Opera and the Latvian National Opera.

The tour director of the company, Opera and Ballet International's Mihai Cocieru said: "We were all exhausted but we are now looking forward to our tour of Britain." To make matters worse, the two Russian coaches they were travelling in then ran out of petrol.

The tour trundled onwards to Croydon and once past a ferry strike in Calais landed in England last Wednesday.

The journey from Chisinau in Russia to England had taken seven days.

Producer Ellen Kent said: "In the history of this company we have never come quite so close to having to cancel a performance but I am glad to say that the old theatrical adage `the show must go on' applies in Eastern Europe as much as in this country. We may have had a cold journey but we ask for a warm welcome."

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