WNAM REPORT: With the onset of May, the Operaliya International Music Festival will open its doors for Astana audience again, the press service of Astana Opera reported.
The event will start at Astana Opera on May 16 and will last until July 13. During this period, exciting opera and ballet stories will come to life at the country’s main theatrical venue and engrossing concert programs will be offered to the audience.
With the support of the Ministry of Culture and Information, the festival will present more than 30 events that will bring together artists from Italy, Bulgaria, China, Russia and, of course, Kazakhstan.
For two months, Operaliya 2025 will become a true cultural marathon, where each event will be different from the previous one. This is the third year that Astana Opera has hosted the festival, which is more than 20 years old.
Famous conductors – Alan Buribayev, Abzal Mukhitdin, Giuseppe Acquaviva, Ruslan Baimurzin, Arman Urazgaliyev and Elmar Buribayev – will take turms heading the music celebration, each giving their own flair to the festival evenings.
Operaliya will open on May 16-17 with a brilliant premiere of Roland Petit’s one-act ballets – L’Arlesienne, Le Jeune Homme et la Mort and Carmen. Passionate and inimitable, they will set the tone for the entire festival. Next comes a kaleidoscope of opera and ballet performances and concerts: on May 20 – the first comic opera Aisulu by Sydyq Mukhamedzhanov, on May 23 – a wonderful creative evening of the opera house’s principal dancer Madina Unerbayeva, kindhearted fairy tales for children: on May 24 and 25 – César Cui’s Puss in Boots, and Cinderella staged by Raimondo Rebeck on June 1 and 2.
Bizet’s large-cale Carmen will be presented on June 6 with tenor from Russia Dmitry Golovnin as Don José, and Nomad Inspiration, a unique joint project of Astana Opera with Kazakh ethno-folk ensemble HasSak, awaits the audience two days later.
The festival, like a multifaceted gemstone, will shine on the opera house’s various stages, from the Grand Hall, to the cozy Chamber Hall and refined Marble Hall. A series of concerts will unfold at the Kulyash Baiseitova Chamber Hall: from the virtuoso performance of the Bulgarian violinist Pavel Minev to a cello evening featuring Salauat Karibayev and Aliyar Otetleu, from piano solos performed by Yelaman Yernur from Moscow to vocal evenings dedicated to Kazakh composers. Rossini’s opera buffa La Scala di Seta will also be performed there, and an evening in Sydyq Mukhamedzhanov’s memory will be held. A concert version of Rachmaninoff’s opera Aleko will unfold at the Marble Hall.
A special event on June 20 and 21 will be the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Sleeping Beauty, staged by Altynai Asylmuratova – a bright fairytale performance that will adorn the season. On June 26, the Astana Opera International Opera Academy attendees will also present a premiere of Bellini’s opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi and the concert In Native Languages, reminding that music has no borders.
Ballet stars from Russia and China will take the stage in the Gala Ballet on June 29, so the audience will get acquainted with the work of the principal dancers of the Chinere National Ballet Zhuming Chen and Mengying Fang, principal of the Mariinsky Theatre Phillipp Stepin and coryphee of the Mariinsky Theatre Alisa Barinova.
In July, Astana residents will see Puccini’s La Bohème with guest soloists – Italian soprano Angela Nisi (Mimi), Chinese tenor Zi-Zhao Guo (Rodolfo), Italian bass Sargis Bazhbeuk-Melikyan (Colline), and 21st century ballets: Raimondo Rebeck’s How Long Is Now? and Valentino Zucchetti’s Souvenir de Danse – a modern choreographic dialogue with the world. Finally, Puccini’s grand opera Turandot featuring Russian tenor Mikhail Pirogov will be a large-scale conclusion to the festival. Under the baton of the opera house’s principal conductor Alan Buribayev, the final chords of the festival will be a celebratory anthem bringing glory to high art.
