Traviata and Turandot
This Saturday, at the National Opera in Kiev, the winner of the Grand Prix of Maria Callas – the most prestigious awards in the world – will perform! Honored Artist of Ukraine Olga Mykytenko is invited as a soloist to the coolest opera houses of the world: Metropolitan Opera (USA), the Italian theater Teatro di San Carlo, the Swedish Royal Opera House, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Spain, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (Italy).
On October 24, you can hear her in the main party of Violetta Valéry in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata. The author wrote his work with composer Francesco Piave on drama by Alexander Dumas’ The Lady With Camellias. The opera premiered in 1853 (!) in the same not so close Venice stage of La Fenice. It was a resounding failure there. Music researchers say that this happened because of poorly matched topic, the absence of attention to the tastes of the audience (modern opera, costumes), and also a chubby singer was picked for the role of Violetta, who dies of tuberculosis according the scenario (now you know the ending). But a year later, the director Antonio Gallo rewrote the work taking all the nuances into consideration, and theater visitors liked the play – then it surpassed almost all opera stages of the world! A. Dumas the son admitted that without Verdi his play would be forgotten in 50 years after writing.
Who won’t be able to see the play on Saturday, can visit opera house on the next Thursday, October 29, Olga Mykytenko will play a part of Liu in the opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini. It is the last work of the great Italian opera composer who died while writing, and it was finished by his pupil Franco Alfano. The opera was performed for the first time in the famous La Scala in 1926, genius Arturo Toscanini was the conductor, and after the death of Liu (again Mykytenko dies on stage), he stopped and said, “At this point, Puccini interrupted his work, because this time the death was more powerful than art.” After these words, performers, musicians, and the audience silently and sadly left the room. The performance was played entirely only on the second performance with Alfano’s post-writing. In 1928, director Manzii had Turandot on the stage of the Kyiv Opera.
Although you know the finals of these works, Shevchenko National Academic Opera and Ballet is still worth visiting! First, such famous singers as Olga Mykytenko don’t act daily; secondly, tickets cost from 20 UAH; thirdly, look at this building and say honestly: isn’t it interesting to see it from the inside?
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