15.12.2011

Twelve plays and two concerts included in 30th Shaliapin Festival's programme

(Kazan, December 15, Tatar-inform). A programme for the 30th Shaliapin international opera festival named after F. Shaliapin has been identified. The poster includes 12 plays and 2 large gala concerts.

The festival repertoire’s foundation is traditionally the Tatar Opera and Ballet Theatre’s own productions, including the latest premieres - operas Carmen, Lucia de Lammermoor, Madame Butterfly, Rigoletto and La Traviata.

The programme as always includes operas from F. Shaliapin’s repertoire - Boris Godunov by Musorgsky and Aida by Verdi. The lead parts are performed by bass singers. The parts of the restless Tzar Boris and ruthless priest Ramfis were landmark ones in Fedor Shaliapin’s career. The comic opera Figaro’s Wedding will be performed as a concert.

The festival will open on 1 February 2012 with a premiere of P. Tchaikovsky’s Evgeny Onegin’s “lyrical scenes”. The new version of the most popular Russian opera is being worked on by conductor Mikhail Pletnev, director Mikhail Panjavidze and designer Igor Grinevich.

This year’s innovation is a play staged by the Mariin Theatre, An Enchanted Wanderer. The world premiere of the play, composed by Rodion Schedrin in 2002 at the order of the New York Philharmonic, was a great international success. Wanderer was first performed in Russia in 2007 by  the Mariin Theatre’s soloists and symphony orchestra. The stage version premiered in July 2008 within the international music festival White Nights Stars, arousing a great interest from the audience and the press.

An Enchanted Wanderer has never been shown in Kazan. The play will be performed by Mariin Theatre’s soloists, orchestra and choir (over 150), the theatre’s press service reports.

The 30th Shaliapin Festival will end with two large gala concerts on 16 and 17 February 2012.