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| | Arts Calendar / April 25 / Opera |
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 Opera in three acts to music by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano after the play Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich von Schiller. Music Director: Eduard Topchjan. Stage Director: Georgiy Isaakyan. Set Designer: Alexey Tregubov. Sung in Italian. Friends greet Louise on her birthday, but the girl is waiting only for her beloved. She does not know that the young man who calls himself Carl is in fact none other than Rudolf, the son of the new master, Count Walter. Louise's father Miller senses trouble, and for good reason. Wurm, the earl's steward and rejected pretender to Louise's hand, reveals Rudolf's secret to Miller in a fit of jealousy. The father is shocked: his daughter is in danger. The love between Rudolf and Louise contradicts the intentions of Count Walter, another indignant father: he expects his son to propose not to Louise, a girl from the "lower classes", but to Duchess Federica, and thus strengthen the position of the family. Rudolf refuses. His confession outrages Federica. Miller, furious, informs Louise about the deceit of her lover. But Rudolf reveals his real name to Louise and asks Miller for her hand in marriage. Suddenly, the Count appears to destroy all hopes for happiness. The Count will not allow this union, the punishment is inevitable. Only the threat of his son to reveal the terrible secret of how the Count got his title keeps Walter from ordering to arrest Louise along with his father...
Bolshoi Theater New Stage  |
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 Opera to music by Giacomo Puccini, 170 min (with one intermission). In Italian. Puccini is a connoisseur of the female soul. Most of his operas are portraits of women: Manon Lescaut, Tosca, La fanciulla del West, Turandot… Puccini’s favorite topic is “What is love between a Man and a Woman?”. The clash of Masculine and Feminine, the clash of Eastern and Western mentality are the core of Madama Butterfly. Puccini’s music reveals the feelings of the heroes subtly, passionately, unusually accurately following their state of mind. It breathes with poetry, romance and the fragrance of the “oriental” East. In 1904, a U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan, for himself and his soon-to-be wife, "Butterfly". Her real name is Cio-Cio-san. She is a 15-year-old Japanese girl whom he is marrying for convenience, and he intends to leave her once he finds a proper American wife, since Japanese divorce laws are very lax. The wedding is to take place at the house. Butterfly had been so excited to marry an American that she had earlier secretly converted to Christianity...
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theater |
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 Opera for children by Andrei Rubtsov in two acts. Music Director: Andrei Rubtsov. Stage Director: Nina Chusova. Set Designer: Viktor Platonov. Sung in Russian with English surtitles. London. The house where Mr and Mrs Darling live with their children, daughter Wendy and sons John and Michael. The parents are horrified by the mess their children’s games turn their house into. The Father wants the children to grow up. The Mother believes that there is no need to rush them. Both agree that it is high time at least Wendy, the eldest of the children, left the nursery and progressed into a new life. The parents go out, and the children begin to play: Michael imagines himself a pirate captain, John a Native American chief. When they are done playing, Wendy puts her brothers to bed and, looking at a star, makes a wish never to grow up. An unexpected guest turns up at the Darlings’: a boy who tries to catch his own shadow and attach it back to his heels. He introduces himself to Wendy as Peter Pan. Wendy sews him together with his shadow and gives him a kiss; unaware of the meaning of kisses, Peter gives her an acorn in return...
Boris Pokrovsky Chamber Stage |
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