The 24th International Aspendos Opera and Ballet Festival will be held at the Aspendos Ancient Theater in Antalya, beginning at the end of this month.
According to a statement from the Antalya State Opera and Ballet (ANTDOB), the opera and ballet festival will be held between Aug. 23 and Sept. 4.
The festival will start with the opera "Aida," composed by Giuseppe Verdi, on Aug. 23.
Varna Opera will take the stage with local and foreign soloists under the directorship of head stage director Kuzman Popov. Borislav Ivanov will conduct "Aida," holding the baton with foreign soloists such as Kamen Chanev from the Vienna State Opera, Dimitrinka Raycheva from the Varna Opera and Agunda Kulaeva from the Bolshoi Theater. Soloists Murat Güney, Engin Suna, Şafak Güç, M.Burak Pektaş and Arzu Aydoğumu will also share the stage in the first performance.
In the second performance of "Aida," Antalya and Mersin State Opera and Ballet artists will be on stage. The soloists in this performance on Aug. 25 are Koray Damcıoğlu, Nurdan Küçükekmekçi, Stare Çelebi, Alaaddin Ataseven, Şafak Güç, Engin Suna, M. Burak Pektaş and Zişan Damcıoğlu. The orchestra will be conducted by Alexandru Samuil.
The Istanbul State Opera and Ballet's version of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" will be performed.
In the closing ceremony, the Moskova Natalia Sats State Opera and Ballet Theater from Russia will perform their triplet dance shows, "Scheherazade/Chopin/Polovtsian Dances." Andris Liepa will perform the choreography of Micheal Fokin.
Turkey's first opera and ballet festival is organized by the State Opera and Ballet General Directorate of the Culture Ministry. The festival was first put on in 1994 in the Antalya Ancient Theater. Nearly 60,000 spectators attend the festival every year.
