By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan has been invited as a guest country to the 9th St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum.

The delegation led by Culture Minister Anar Karimov will represent the country at the cultural forum on November 11-13.

This status reflects strong intercultural ties and contributes to the strengthening of the cultural partnership. 

Being a guest country, Azerbaijan will delight the festival's guests with its modern culture and traditions. A large-scale cultural program will be presented as part of the festival.

Exposition at Hermitage Museum

The list of significant events includes the grand opening of the country's permanent exposition at the State Hermitage Museum.

The Hermitage Museum is known as one of the world's largest and most prestigious museums.

St. Petersburg's most popular visitor attraction was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired an impressive collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

The museum's collections include over three million exhibits. In 2020, the Hermitage Museum ranked eleventh on the list of most visited art museums in the world.

Monument to prominent composer

The ceremony of laying the first stone for the monument of prominent national composer Uzeyir Hajibayli will take place in the St. Petersburg square which has been named after the outstanding composer since 2020.

Uzeyir Hajibayli laid the foundation of Azerbaijan's professional music. He was the first composer of an opera in the Islamic world.

The opera "Leyli and Majnun" (1908) is based on traditional folk music and dance, musical genres that relied on oral traditions.

Furthermore, the composer wrote his second opera "Sheikh Sanan", "Rustam and Sohrab", "Asli and Karam", "Shah Abbas" and "Khurshudbanu and Harun" and "Leyli" entirely based on the national folk music elements, primarily mugham.

He also composed three comedies including, "Husband and Wife" (1910), "If not this one, that one" (1911) and "Arshin Mal Alan" (1913).

"Arshin Mal Alan" or "The Cloth Peddler" was the latest and one of the most popular operettas of the eminent composer.

The operetta has been successfully performed in a plethora of languages in over 60 countries of the world, including in the U.S, Austria, France, China, Greece, India, Russia, and Turkey.

The birthday of a national composer is celebrated in Azerbaijan on September 18 as the National Music Day.

Spectacular concert

Fikrat Amirov's ballet "One Thousand and One Nights" will be presented at the Mariinsky Theater.

"One Thousand and One Nights" is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. Known in English as the "Arabian Nights", the work is about Scheherazade, a Sassanid Queen, who tells a series of stories to her husband, King Shahryar in order to delay her execution.

The exciting story of Scheherazade laid the foundation of the ballet of the same name.

The ballet was first staged at the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in 1979.  In 1980, the ballet was awarded the USSR State Prize.

"One Thousand and One Nights" was staged for the first time at the Buryat Opera and Ballet Theater in 1992.

The ballet's new version was premiered as part of the 5th Mariinsky International Far East Festival.

More than 300 costumes with hand embroidery were made for the ballet show directed by Honored Art Worker of Russia Eldar Aliyev.

Azerbaijan's traditional music instruments - tar and naghara were presented to the theater on behalf of the national musicians.

The festival will also feature a jazz concert and film screenings as part of the program.

Notably, the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum gathers together theater, opera and ballet stars, outstanding directors and musicians, public figures, representatives of authorities, and businessmen on the banks of the Neva River.

The large-scale project includes both a business program for professionals and numerous cultural events.

France and South Korea will also join the forum as guest countries