Astana Opera announces plans for the season
The Gala Opera will take place online at the opera house Grand Hall. The program features the best examples of the national and world heritage: scenes from operas – Akhmet Zhubanov and Latyf Khamidi’s Abai, Gioachino Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and much more, presented by the famous soloists of the capital’s opera company.
The opera house management stated that in the second half of 2020 and in 2021, the audience will see grand premieres and exciting concert programs. The premiere online screening of Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale will take place in the beginning of October. Exclusive ballet Six Dances, staged by outstanding choreographer Jiří Kylián to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, will continue the string of new productions. After that, the long-awaited premieres of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera L’Elisir d’Amore and the national ballet Call of the Steppe staged by Patrick de Bana to the music by Tles Kazhgaliyev, Renat Gaisin and Carlos Pino-Quintana will be presented to theatre arts aficionados.
The ballet production of Gyula Harangozó’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the music of Tibor Kocsák will give the audience the joy of meeting with a fairytale story, familiar to everyone from childhood, in a new and interesting interpretation. The main premiere of the next year – Yerkegali Rakhmadiyev’s national opera Alpamys – will be offered to classical art enthusiasts.
«We are opening this season in an unusual for us format: the artists will perform onstage without the viewers in the auditorium. Live streams of performances and concerts are scheduled for September. At the moment, the soloists are happy to start working after such a long break. They work in rehearsal halls and are certainly excited despite the fact that our first meeting with the audience will be taking place online. The opera house’s artistic council has developed a rich repertoire for the eighth season, which includes national and world classical operas and ballets, chamber music concerts and, of course, programs for children and youth audiences. Many of our plans were not implemented due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the quarantine, we actively worked online, created a variety of projects, all the while receiving feedback in the form of positive comments and letters from fans of our opera house,» Galym Akhmedyarov, General Director of the Astana Opera, Honoured Worker of Kazakhstan, said.
In addition to the Through the Pages of Opera Classics Gala Opera program, the September billboards also feature choreographic masterpieces of the Silver Age Ballets, Scheherazade to the music of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
The opera house staff hopes to meet again with their dear viewers and listeners in the very near future.