"Madame Butterfly" in honour of Big Minya Minev
News публикувана на: 12.04.2019
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On 19 April at 7 pm at the State Opera Stara Zagora is the production of the opera Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini. The performance is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Minyo Minev. February 5, 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Minyo Minev (5.02.1919 - 8.11.1984), a long-time soloist of the Stara Zagora Opera, the singer who carried the tenor repertoire of the musical institution for more than 40 years. Dozens of roles were created and interpreted by him, some of which remain to this day as examples of high art.
At 6 p.m. in the foyer will be presented the book "THE BEST MAD GUIDE" by senior lecturer Emma Žunić from the Institute for Arts Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on the life and work of Minyo Minev, published on the occasion of the anniversary .
The conductor of the performance on 19 April is Maestro Jacopo Cipari di Pescarola /Italy/. The talented and extravagant Maestro Jacopo Sipari was Musical Director of the Macedonian State Opera and Ballet, Chief Guest Conductor of the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, as well as guest conductor of the Pompeii Opera Festival, Bellini Festival, etc. Jacopo Sipari is one of Italy's most promising young conductors /and a practicing lawyer at the Vatican/.
The stage adaptation of Madame Butterfly is directed by Slavcho Nikolov, set design by Boris Stoynov, costume design by Tsvetanka Petkova-Stoynova, choreography by Boryana Sechanova.
In the role of Cho Cho San you will see Silvana Froli - a familiar name from the world opera stages. Pinkerton is Ivaylo Mikhailov, Sharpless is Alexander Krunev, Goro is Ivaylo Yovchev, Suzuki is Petya Petrova , Kate Pinkerton is Emilia Djurova and others. Participants are the choir, orchestra and ballet of the State Opera-Stara Zagora.
Madame Butterfly of the State Opera-Stara Zagora is a performance created in 2005 for the opening of the Festival of Opera and Ballet Art /FOBI/. In this year the Opera House is not yet completed and the performances are played on the stage of the Geo Milev Drama Theatre in the city. During the 2005/2006 season, at the invitation of Columbia Artist Management, the show was performed in over 15 states of the USA. The touring production has received positive reviews and rave reviews from the American press and audiences. With a small hiatus between 2010 and 2012, the show never left the Stara Zagora stage for 6 seasons, enjoying exceptional audience response.
Who is the legendary Madame Butterfly?
Madame Butterfly (Cho Cho San) is a geisha in love with the frivolous American Lieutenant Pinkerton. He marries her, but not exactly out of love as much as infatuation and tempted by the possibility of marriage in both Japan and the States. Returning to America, he marries Kate accordingly, and Cho Cho-san is left alone with their child, waiting for him in their house in Nagasaki, scorned by her relatives and rejecting marriage proposals from a Japanese prince. Three years later, Pinkerton disembarks the ship at the harbor with his American wife and wants to take the child with him, and Madame Butterfly's broken heart cannot endure and she ends her life.
Puccini was first introduced to this story in London, where he attended a theatrical production of David Belasco's Madame Butterfly, who, in turn, adapted it from John Luther Long's short story published in a magazine. Indeed, this Japanese drama carries the inevitable charge of becoming an operatic work, but Puccini was actually inspired less by it than by the performance of the actress Evelyn Millard. She played the character of the lovelorn geisha so affectingly that, immediately on his return to Italy, the composer commissioned a libretto from the authors Ilica and Giacosa, who, to enrich the plot, added new action to it.
The premiere in February 1904 was a complete fiasco. Puccini's enemies were behind its orchestrated failure, but in all likelihood the opera surprised audiences with its modernity and atypicality, as well as its unconvincing scenography. Puccini did not give up, however, but reworked it, and three months later a second premiere took place in Brescia, where the work was perceived in a radically different way, and from where it took its glorious path around the world.
Come to the State Opera-Stara Zagora on 2 March at 7pm to see a performance that weaves together the aesthetics and depth of the East - against which stands out the bright and fiery heart of little Cho Cho San, who is all Love, she is Love itself!