Opera & Folk Dance in Moscow

Last Saturday when I went to Opera for the first time in my life incidentally Opera had completed its 400th anniverssary.
An excerpt from the Wikipedia
Origins
Main article: Origins of Opera

Claudio Monteverdi
The word opera means "works" in Italian (from the plural of Latin opus meaning "work" or "labour") suggesting that it combines the arts of solo and choral singing, declamation, acting and dancing in a staged spectacle. Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata". Significantly, Dafne was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne is unfortunately lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day. The honour of being the first opera still to be regularly performed, however, goes to Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo, composed for the court of Mantua in 1607.[2]


pic courtsey-Novaya Opera

Demon- Opera in two parts
(based on a poem by Mikahil Lermontov)
Last Saturday I went to an Oprea- first time in my life and I found it thoroughly entertaining. The Opera was Demon by Rubenstein being shown at Novaya Opera in the Hermitage Garden in Moscow, a newly built Opera House in 1999.

The synopsis of the opera ‘Demon’

A demon bored by his loneliness looks out for a girl’s love and he finds the beautiful princess Tamara dancing with her attendants on the eve of her marriage. The prince is on the way to marry her but he along with his men is held by by a storm created by the demon in a deep gorge and then is captured and killed by the bandits. Princess Tamara is aghast hearing this news and asks her father King Gudal for his permission to enter a convent. The Demon declares his love for the princess and pursues her in the convent but is thwarted by the angel but the Demon manages to kiss the Princess and dies. Her soul is carried to the heaven by the angel eaving the Demon lonely and disappointed.
The sounds and lights and the choir all combined together make a great spectacle and the orchestra with its magical music creates a new magical reality.
I had a great evening.

Beriozka-

pic courtsey gkd.ru

The Russian Ballet is world famous for the graceful movements of the Ballerinas. Beriozka deserves the equal name and fame. It may be called as ‘Gliding Dance’. In Beriozka dance girls dressed in long gowns that emphasize their stately figures, do not mark their steps but glide to the melody of the song. The name Beriozka comes from the Birch tree that is found in abundance in Russia. A dance company named ‘Beriozka’ was founded in May 1948 and since then this dance has been performed in more than 65 countries and millions of people have enjoyed this dance.
Last Sunday at the Kremlin Palace Theatre I watched Beriozka along with a number of other Russian folk dances viz. sudarushka- working people’s dance, Trudu, Lebiaduska, Kadril, Beriozka with waltz, Petrushka, magnificent Sepochka, Rasdolnaya, Platkon, Polsidelki, and Kalinka.