The International Music Festival “Operalia-2024” has started in Astana. The event brings together famous artists from Spain, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Tajikistan, Georgia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. The festival is held in Kazakhstan for the second time and is one of the key cultural events demonstrating the beauty of opera, ballet and symphonic art.

Famous Italian artists Desire Rancatore, Alberto Gazale and Giulio Pelligra performed at the opening of the festival, performing arias from masterpieces of opera art together with soloists of the Astana Opera.

“I am happy to come to Kazakhstan for the first time and am pleased with this important debut performance here. What I wanted to convey to the Kazakh public is the love for Italian opera and the feelings that arise thanks to it. I hope that thanks to the magnificent pages of the repertoire we performed, the audience was able to deeply feel and be imbued with all the moods and emotions of the characters that we transferred to the stage,” said Giulio Pelligra.

It should be noted that this year a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation was concluded between Kazakhstan and Italy, and Operalia became part of the implementation of plans for the mutual exchange of artists between the two countries. Thus, the memorandum will enable Kazakh culture to be sustainable in the global cultural space.

As part of Operalia 2024, the Astana Opera also hosted a gala ballet with the participation of artists from China and Russia.

The festival also became a platform for popularizing Kazakh opera art. The audience was presented with numbers from the operas “Enlik – Kebek” by G. Zhubanova, “Kyz Zhibek” by E.Brusilovsky, “Alpamys” and “Kamar Sulu” by E. Rakhmadiev. Guests were presented with new dance numbers - “Zharmenke” to the music of the folklore and ethnographic ensemble “Turan” in the choreography of Anvara Sadykova and Almat Shamshiev and another production by Anvara Sadykova “Sarmatian Priestess” to the music of the alternative folk group Steppe Sons.

The festival, uniting art from different countries and eras, will last until July 13.

gov.kz

translated by Qazalem