On 1 and 2 February at the Mariinsky-II the Astana Opera will be presenting Maurice Jarre's ballet Notre Dame de Paris with choreography by Roland Petit.
The lead roles will be performed by Bakhtiyar Adamzhan (recipient of the Grand Prix at international competitions) and Rustem Seitbekov (Honoured Artist of Kazakhstan) as Quasimodo, Aigerim Beketayeva and Madina Basbayeva (both Honoured Artists of Kazakhstan) as Esmeralda, international competition prize-winners Olzhas Tarlanov and Arman Urazov as Phoebus and international competition prize-winners Gaziz Ryskulov and Serik Nakyspekov as Claude Frollo. The Mariinsky Orchestra will be conducted by Arman Urazgaliev.
The ballet Notre Dame de Paris was created in 1965 for the ballet company of the Opéra de Paris. Librettist and choreographer Roland Petit, who turned to the novel by Victor Hugo, focussed his attention on four characters - Esmeralda, Quasimodo (a role he himself performed at the premiere), Claude Frollo and Phoebus, and he also made the crowd one of the protagonists in the ballet. The music by Maurice Jarre, specially written for the production, the costumes by couturier Yves Saint Laurent and the choreography by Roland Petit made Notre Dame de Paris one of the key ballet events of its time. In 1978 the choreographer brought the production to the Kirov Theatre (now the Mariinsky), and in 2003 the ballet was staged at the Bolshoi Theatre. At the Astana Opera the premiere took place on 24 June 2016 on the initiative of Altynai Asylmuratova, Artistic Director of the ballet company and a former Mariinsky Theatre prima ballerina who also worked for several years with Roland Petit and performed lead roles in his ballets.
"We hope that Notre Dame de Paris will be interesting for St Petersburg's audiences. In this truly 'ballet city', with the noble public of Russia's cultural capital who love art and know a great deal about it, there is the opportunity to value the creative efforts not just of the brilliant home company of the Mariinsky Theatre but also leading international companies. Our appearance will be a kind of exam that we will try to pass with honours. It gives me a triple sense of responsibility and a particular sense of trembling," said Altynai Asylmuratova.
The Mariinsky Theatre has already enjoyed several years of successful collaboration with the Astana Opera. In the spring of 2014 St Petersburg hosted the first international tour by the Kazakh company. At that time there were performances of the opera Birzhan and Sara by Mukan Tulebayev, Attila by Giuseppe Verdi and a ballet gala. Soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre as well as the chorus and orchestra under Valery Gergiev paid a return visit, appearing at the I Silk Road international festival in 2014, during which the Astana Opera hosted performances of two parts of Richard Wagner's tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. In 2015 Astana was a stopping-point for the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev's tour as part of the XIV Moscow Easter Festival, while in the 2015-16 season under Valery Gergiev at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre there was a performance by the Symphony Orchestra of the Astana Opera.
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