31.01.2013

Shalyapin Opera Festival Starts This Friday

The Shalyapin International Opera Festival this year dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the great singer’s birth as usual promises to become a prominent fixture in the operatic calendar. No wonder it had been sold out much ahead and in record-breaking time. One of the oldest opera forums in Russia will start this Friday at Tatar state Opera and Ballet Theatre with Aida production.

Conducted by well-known director Yuri Alexandrov (Saint Petersburg) renovated Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida will be staged twice – on the 1st and 2nd of February and is certainly acknowledged as one of the program’s drawing cards. The festival’s zest is certainly Don Quixote opera by Jules Massenet which will be premiered on the forum’s final day. The production will be performed by world famous Mariinskiy Theater opera company and conducted by outstanding Valeriy Gergiev.

Alongside with the classical European and Russian pieces the program also features The Love of the Poet opera by Rezeda Akhiyarova performed in the Tatar language. The festival’s planning is set to fill each day of this opera marathon with wonderful works casting lead singers from Italy, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, the USA, Canada, Kazakhstan and other countries so that whatever the program throws up it is unlikely to be dull.

The festival runs until 16 February.

Written By: Landysh Welieva, kazantimes.com