Opera and Ballet Theater releases May program

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ In this May, the Opera and Ballet Theater is planning to present a rich-as-usual program to their audiences. Its May program will open on May 3 with ‘Il trovatore’ (the Troubadour) opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, which began a victorious march throughout the operatic world since its premiere in 1853, a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. Il trovatore will be staged again on May 10. On May 4, the Theater will stage two ballets - ‘Francesca da Rimini’ by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and ‘Girls of Jewels’ by Z.Khangal. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini: Symphonic Fantasy after Dante, Op. 32, was composed in less than three weeks during his visit to Bayreuth in the autumn of 1876. It is dedicated to his friend and former pupil Sergei Taneyev. In this fantasia, Tchaikovsky presents a symphonic interpretation of the tragic tale of Francesca da Rimini, a beauty who was immortalized in Dante's Divine Comedy. These two ballets will close the monthly program on May 30. The program also includes another ballet by Tchaikovsky -Swan Lake- to be performed on May 11 and 18.Swan Lake is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger. The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on 4 March 1877 the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. In this May, opera enthusiasts may see two other operas in the theater –Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on May 17, and Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini on May 24-25. Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional libertine and seducer. A staple of the standard operatic repertoire, Don Giovanni is currently tenth on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide. It has also proved a fruitful subject for writers and philosophers.