Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The ballet “Swan Lake” by Tchaikovsky will be staged at the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre in Baku on March 7.

The ballet which is one of the most popular performances of all times will be dedicated to the 100th birthday anniversary of Gamar Almaszade, the first ballerina of the East.

Soloists of the Belarus National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre such as Alexandra Chijik (Odette-Odile) and Egor Azarkevic (Prince Siegfried) will play the leading roles of the ballet. Their tours with great triumphs were held in Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Japan and Switzerland.

The conductor of the ballet will be Azerbaijani people’s artist Javanshir Jafarov.

The performance will be staged at 19:00. The address of the venue is 28 May street, 8. The cost of the tickets is 22 and 33 manats.

Almaszade is considered the first ballerina of the Muslim world. She became interested in ballet at a very young age, when she saw her friend performing ballet moves. Inspired by her friend, she signed up for ballet lessons at a private studio.

Gamar's mother approved her daughter's new interest but her father, a conservative Muslim, believed that Gamar was attending gym in order to have him pay for her lessons.

The secret was soon revealed and, as expected, Gamar's father did not support her choice. However he was reported to have secretly supporting his daughter later, when she became a renowned ballerina. To meet her father's expectations, she also enrolled in a teachers' college.

During her career, she toured France, India, and Nepal. In 1970, she was invited to Baghdad by Iraq's Ministry of Culture to promote Iraqi folk dance and found the Iraq Folk Dance Ensemble.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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