The festival “Faces of Baroque” will open up new horizons of musical art to Astrakhan residents

From May 19 to 26, the Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theater will host a Baroque music festival for the first time. The new theatrical project is to demonstrate different facets of musical art to the participants of the festival and set up the traditions of baroque performance.

Three different theater spaces will present the variety of Baroque musical styles to the audience. On May 19, sacred and choral music will be performed during the concert “The Way of the Baroque” in the theater foyer. A big choral concert opens the festival “Faces of Baroque”, where the guests can listen to the masterpieces of the world musical culture. Created in the 17^th and 18th centuries, abundantly decorated, and distinguished by melodic beauty, it sounds modern in the 21st century as well! Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann were the composers who made up the golden fund of the Baroque era music.

Secular instrumental music will be performed at the festival during the concert “Maestros of the Baroque” on May 22. It will be presented by the chamber ensemble “Les Moscovites”, which specializes in performing the music of the 18th century on historical instruments. The team was founded exactly 10 years ago by Philip Nodel, the teacher at the P.I. Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory. The core team of “Les Moscovites” is made up of teachers and graduates of the Moscow Conservatory, as well as soloists of leading orchestras of Moscow. Music performed on the rare baroque instruments will allow the audience to immerse themselves in a special atmosphere, and to appreciate the extraordinary sound of each ancient instrument, thanks to the exclusive work of the masters who created them, the special cut of the wood, and the uniqueness of the material the instruments were made of. Violin, viola da gamba, theorbo, bassoon, oboe, clavecin...

The opera Dido and Aeneas will premiere on May 25 and 26. To stage it, a new chamber theater stage will be built on the Big Stage; in the future it will host chamber concerts or experimental productions that might require closer contact with the performers. The premiere performance Dido and Aeneas will tell about love, break up, family relationships and the choices that every person makes at one time or another. The role of Dido will be performed by the soloist of the Nizhny Novgorod Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, the laureate of international competitions, the laureate of the National Opera Prize “Onegin”, the participant of the 5th international television project “Bolshoi Opera” Yana Dyakova.

The Astrakhan Festival “Facets of Baroque” is going to be a big musical event that will discover a whole layer of masterpieces of world musical culture for the Astrakhan residents and guests of the Caspian capital, and invite them on a fascinating musical journey through the heritage of the great Baroque era!