"Scheherazade" ballet to be staged in Baku

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater invites you to enjoy "Scheherazade" ballet on October 12.

"Scheherazade" is a symphonic suite composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888. The ballet immerses the audience into the ambiance of the Arabian folk tale of "One Thousand and One Nights"

The ballet was composed on Michael Fokine's choreography (1910). In this production, the ballet has been already staged in the Russian Bolshoi Theater, the Mariinsky Theatre and the Kyiv Opera and Ballet Theater.

The main part of Zobeida for the first time will be performed by the prima ballerina of the theater, Honored Artist Jamila Karimova.

Honored Artist Makar Fershtandt, soloists Timur Odushev, Dilyara Mekhdiyeva, Dinara Shirinova and others will also take part in the ballet.

"Scheherazade" ballet will be conducted by the People's Artist Yalchin Adigozalov.

Stunningly beautiful ballet music, spectacular scenery will be a wonderful gift for all spectators.

"One Thousand and One Nights" is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the “Arabian Nights”.

The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central and South Asia and North Africa.

It tells the story of Scheherazade, a Sassanid Queen, who tells a series of stories to her husband, King Shahryar in order to delay her execution. The stories are told over a period of one thousand and one nights. Every night Scheherazade ends the story with a suspenseful situation, forcing the King to keep her alive for another day.

The exciting story of Scheherazade laid the foundation of the ballet of the same name. "One Thousand and One Nights" is a ballet in two acts by Fikrat Amirov to a libretto by playwrights Magsud and Rustam Ibragimbayovs. The libretto is based on episodes from "One Thousand and One Nights".

The ballet was premiered in 1979 at the Azerbaijan State Opera and Ballet Theater.