The Operaliya International Festival will open on June 20 at the Astana Opera Grand Hall. The event will take on a colossal scope: celebrities on the red carpet, a performance art event in the foyer and a constellation of ballets by the iconic contemporary choreographer Jiří Kylián presented on the same stage on the same day.
“The theatrical tradition has developed in such a way that it is customary to open festivals with something new and interesting. When forming the program of the international festival, we came up with the idea to combine three productions – Sechs Tänze, Falling Angels – a performance of the Astana Ballet theatre and the recent premiere of our opera house Petite Mort – into one evening of ballets. I think that the audience that is interested in art, and that is sometimes forced to travel to another country or another city to see such rare productions, since they are not available everywhere, will have an opportunity to watch three ballets at the same time at one venue. This really makes the opening of the festival unique,” the world ballet star Altynai Asylmuratova, the artistic director of the Astana Opera Ballet Company, said.
All three productions, Sechs Tänze, Falling Angels, Petite Mort, are part of the Black and White series of ballets. Falling Angels will open the first part. It is the result of a symbiosis of Jiří Kylián’s choreography and Steve Reich’s drum composition. The performance is a delightful flight of eight ballerinas. Both other ballets will be performed in the second part. They also have a plotless basis, but have been created to Mozart’s music. The viewers invariably laugh and cry over these brilliant works of the master, because they see the deep meaning of human existence in these productions.
“I would like for people to strive to attend every performance of the Operaliya festival featuring star artists, because the opportunity to watch them does not come about every day, they need to be seen here and now,” Altynai Asylmuratova concluded.
It is worth noting that the Operaliya International Festival has a long and rich life, approaching the twenty-year milestone. This year it is held in the Astana Opera’s tenth anniversary season. Every year the theme of the festival changes, each has its own bright, unique colors. The singularity of Operalia-2023 lies in its wide range that covers modern and classical art, presented in different musical genres: opera, ballet, symphony and concert.
This year, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan, guest artists and conductors from 12 countries of the world will take part in Operaliya: Armenia, Kazakhstan, Italy, Bulgaria, Mongolia, China, South Korea, Germany, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Overall, 4 grand operas will be shown at the festival: Verdi’s Don Carlos and Aida, Puccini’s Turandot and the premiere of Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri. We would like to emphasize that each opera will be performed twice with different casts of soloists. 2 ballets were also prepared for the audience’s attention: Prokofiev’s Cinderella in Raimondo Rebeck’s choreography and An Evening of Ballets by Jiří Kylián, and 4 concerts: the musical evening Serpin of the Folk Music Ensemble of the Presidential Orchestra of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Gala Opera featuring guest soloists from the SCO countries, The Twelve Seasons chamber music concert as well as the Symphony Concert for the closing of Operaliya and the 10th anniversary season of the Astana Opera, in which a symphonic suite on themes from the opera Qurmanghazy by Akhmet Zhubanov and Gaziza Zhubanova will be presented for the first time.
The festival will last exactly one month. It is expected that the celebration of high art will become an exciting page in the cultural life of our capital.