Puccini’s "Il tabarro" to be staged in Baku
By Nigar Orujova
A premiere of one of the best operas of Italian classic composer Giacomo Puccini will be staged at Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre on January 26.
"Il tabarro" ("The Cloak") opera shows the lustful love between Georgette and the handsome young Luigi, against the lost love between Georgette and her older husband Michel, after the death of their infant son.
The opera, which will be presented in Azerbaijan for the first time will undoubtedly attract great interest of the true opera amateurs.
Moreover, for the first time, the theater has invited well-known German masters of opera for this opera presentation, which will definitely make the staging unique.
German opera professionals, who will stage the performance, the director-producer Ludwig Baumann, for years leading singer at the Munich Opera and Ballet Theater, and now head of the Munich Opera Festival, and famous German conductor Cornelia von Kerssenbrock, artistic director and chief conductor of the Festival, are actively collaborating with the Azerbaijan Opera and Ballet Theater for many years.
They brought the whole sheet music of the opera from Germany. The production of "Il- tabarro" will feature magnificent scenery and costumes.
The one act opera will be performed by the theater's leading soloists Honored Artists Farida Mammadova, Gulnaz Ismayilova, Sabina Asadova and young vocalists Afaq Abbasov, Farid Aliyev, Anton Fershtandt, Aliahmed Ibragimov, Tural Agasiyev and Talat Huseynov. Concertmaster of the opera is Vafa Azizova.
The opera was first staged in New York in December 1918 and got a resounding success. Since then, the performance is in the repertoire of the best opera houses in the world and is still the favorite of audience.