A Thousand and One Night : A Classical Ballet in Two Acts
A Thousand and One Night : A Classical Ballet in Two Acts by The Kremlin Ballet, Russia
Thursday 17 October 2019, 7:30 PM
Music: Fikret Amirov
Libretto: Maksud & Rustam Ibragimbekov, Nailia Nazirova
Artistic Director & Choreographer: Andrei Petrov
Conductor: Evgeny Volynsky
Designer: Tair Salahov
Costume Designer: Olga Polyanskaya
Based on an Arabian folktale this ballet by artistic director and choreographer Andrei Petrov puts on stage the company’s leading principal dancers in a beautiful classical production.
Shahryār, the Sasanian king, on learning of his wife’s infidelity has her killed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides that all women are the same. Shahryār marries a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before she has a chance to dishonor him. The minister whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the minister’s daughter, offers herself as the next bride. On the nights of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is forced to postpone her execution. The next nights, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins another one, and another one… this goes on for one thousand and one nights. The ballet dancers of Kremlin Ballet weave the magic with consummate finesse in this exotic tale to the backdrop of spectacular sets.
