The premiere of the opera The Love for Three Oranges has become a notable musical event in Astrakhan!

The most long-awaited, unusual and vivid premiere of the theatrical spring was on the Big Stage of the Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theater for two evenings! According to the Artistic Director of the theater Valery Voronin, they have been thinking about staging Sergei Prokofiev’s opera The Love for Three Oranges for a long time. However, this cheerful, bewitching and seemingly light performance required a very high professional skills of the performers, musicians, and an innovative interpretation of the work, technical capabilities and ... the ability of the audience to comprehend the unusual aesthetics of the opera proposed by Prokofiev. The Symphonic Orchestra of the Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theater under the baton of Chief Conductor Valery Voronin masterfully set the mood for the vocal parts and actually created a bright emotional picture of the production, coloring the actions and images of the characters in various shades.

The “multi-layered” theatrical action, recognizable historical sketches, symbolism and deliberate conventions promised by the Principal Director of the theater and the director of the opera Alexei Smirnov, were accepted with great interest.

Carlo Gozzi’s fiaba The Love for Three Oranges itself, with its principles of commedia dell’arte, encouraged the director to improvise, however preserving the masks, acting and farce... The audience was eager to decipher the director’s ideas. The stage space of the performance is made of cards; the stage is a huge house of cards. At the entire stage one can see a cabalistic curtain with rotating mechanisms for cards spinning at different speeds. The work of the Stage Designer Elena Bodrova on the scenery and its frequent change make the opera cinematic.

The comedy performance combines different genres: opera-fairy, with lots of funny scenes, opera buffa and even ballet divertissements from Petrushka and Prodigal Son: they are vivid and memorable, and they intensify the dynamics of the action and remind of the era of Sergei Diaghilev’s “Russian Seasons”. A special atmosphere on stage was created by the lighting solution suggested by the Lighting Designer Sergei Skornetsky. The graduate of the Moscow Art Theater School-Studio and the winner of the National Theater Award “Golden Mask”, he has designed more than 60 performances, including two operas staged in the Astrakhan theater: The Elixir of Love and The Love for Three Oranges.

The audience was treated to bright fireworks of events, a kaleidoscope of colors, a riot of emotions and, certainly, music: endlessly witty, inventive, rhythmically acute, combining grotesque and lyricism.

These images of opera characters were talentedly performed by guest soloists: Alexander Chernov from the Bolshoi Theater, Yuri Vlasov and Oleg Sychev from the Mariinsky Theater, Georgy Shagalov from the Samara Opera and Ballet Theater. Laughing, the audience, felt sorry for the hypochondriacal illness of the Prince; long applauded the acting ingenuity of the deep-voiced bearded Cook, and appreciated the regal image of the King of Clubs.

The characters of the opera Ninetta, Clarice, Smeraldina, Leandro, Fata Morgana, Truffaldino, and Magus Chelio, performed by the Astrakhan soloists, were remembered as characteristic, emotional, and musically vivid. A special role was assigned to the chorus: divided into comedians, tragedians, lyricists, empty-heads and eccentrics, the chuorus soloists actively and constantly transforming, assisted the main personages – they discussed the precedents, argued about art, touching on important spiritual matters.

The guests of the premiere also appreciated the costumes of the characters, which embodied the centuries of world history.

In the finale of the fairy-tale performance, the life in the magic kingdom changed: the treacherous intrigues were destroyed by the power of love, trials did not frighten the characters that dreamt of happiness, good and true friendship defeated evil! However, the key to the production was neither humor nor love, it was naivety - a bit funny and touching. The naivety, that helps to overcome difficult times easier, and react to troubles more easily, always to come to the rescue and believe in miracles!

The premiere of the opera The Love for Three Oranges became a real feast of feelings and emotions! You want to watch it again, again to enjoy the brilliant music of Sergei Prokofiev, and meet the favorite characters, taking a closer look at the unusual scenery, unique costumes of the personages and just to have a good mood.

This is exactly what we always come to the theater for...