The ballet company of the National Opera of Ukraine gave four performances of “The Marriage of Figaro” at Dubai Opera, opening the tenth anniversary season of one of the Middle East’s leading theatres. The shows, held on 17–19 September, played to full houses, according to Emirates Today, the Ukrainian community outlet in the UAE.
The ballet is based on Mozart’s opera of the same name. Since Mozart wrote no ballet music for the story, conductor Oleksiy Baklan compiled the score from Mozart’s works. Viktor Yaremenko created the neoclassical choreography, with comic episodes, and co-wrote the libretto with Yuriy Stanishevskyi. The stage director is Alla Vysotska, and the theatre’s chief designer Maria Levytska created the sets and costumes, which were brought from Ukraine. On its website, Dubai Opera notes that the production also marks the 270th anniversary of Mozart’s birth.
Six months of preparation
The tour was organised by the Dubai agency Prime Performance dxb. Its co-founder Olena Brunska said preparations took six months. “We wanted to show the whole world that Ukrainians are unbowed,” she told the outlet.
The audience included both Ukrainians and people of other nationalities. Ukraine’s ambassador to the UAE, Oleksandr Balanutsa, attended the final show and addressed the performers and the audience from the stage in Ukrainian.
An anniversary season
Dubai Opera opened in 2016 and has built a deliberately varied tenth season: the Ukrainian performances were preceded by a gala on 12 September featuring Egyptian soprano Fatma Said. Dubai Opera head Lara Ewing calls the diversity of the programme one of the venue’s defining features.
