20.09.2011

Opera Jalil premieres in Kazan

(Kazan, September 20, Tatar-inform, Maria Kirukhina). The Tatar Academic State Opera and Ballet Theatre on Monday opened its 73rd season with the premiere of an opera Jalil. The premiere is timed to mark 100 years since outstanding Soviet Tatar composer Nazib Zhiganov was born.

The date 15 February 2011 was a remarkable one for Tatarstan as well, since it was the 105th anniversary of the great Tatar poet and USSR Hero Musa Jalil.

The poet’s daughter Chulpan Zalilova came to the premiere with flowers, saying she was going to give them to “the actor who plays Dad”. The part of the hero poet was performed by the Mariin Theatre lead singer Ahmed Agadi, known to theatre lovers in Kazan with his parts of Don Jose in Carmen and Edgardo in Lucia de Lammermoor.

The singer coped equally well with the image of the hero patriot who gave his life for the Motherland. The audience was from the first till the last minute absorbed by the performance, worrying about the main character’s life and sympathising with all those who found themselves in the fascist camp.

The opening scene showed several Gestapo officers marching with Alsatians through the hall to the stage, lighting their way with flashlights. The scenery, German and Russian soldiers’s uniform and concentration camp prisoners’s clothes was reminiscent of bits from a war-time documentary. The escalating music, German speech, loud shots and unperturbed faces of the German soldiers increased the suspense.

The lead female singer Gulzat Daurbayeva (lead singer at the Kazakh Opera and Ballet Theatre), who played the poet’s wife, said after the performance: “When I was offered the part I gladly agreed. I love Kazan, love this team and the audience. It is a great honour for me. The part is quite small but special for this opera”.

She went on to say the director Mikhail Panjavidze had done a lot of work, since a large performance like that could not but be exceptionally effort-consuming.