Baku marks birthday anniversary of Russian playwright

A concert dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Russian playwright Alexander Ostrovsky has been celebrated in Baku with a gala concert.

Many public and cultural figures attended the concert at the Russian Information and Cultural Centre, Azernews reports.

The host and curator of the event, Doctor of Philosophy in Art History and senior lecturer at Baku Music Academy Alena Inyakina welcomed the concert guests.

She noted that the main goal of the project is to strive to reveal the phenomenon of the great playwright’s work through musical art.

This idea is based on the fact that music for Ostrovsky becomes one of the important tools for characterizing characters, a means of deepening the drama and revealing conflicts in his plays.

“It is no coincidence that the author himself includes musical works in his works. Moreover, the terminology that characterizes a whole string of Ostrovsky’s characters turns out to be borrowed from the world of sounds, from the world of music.

The writer’s appeal to eternal themes and situations that happen to the most ordinary people seemed “would, under normal circumstances, make his work relevant for all times, regardless of the historical era. It is no coincidence that the playwright’s work turns out to be interesting for many composers and inspires them to compose musical works based on his opuses,” said Alena Inyakina.

The head of the Rossotrudnichestvo office in Baku Irek Zinnurov said that Alexander Ostrovsky is a Russian playwright, generally considered the largest representative of the Russian realistic period.

The author of 47 original plays, “almost single-handedly created the Russian national repertoire.” His dramas are among the most widely read and frequently performed stage plays in Russia.

The official part of the event was followed by musical compositions related to the life and work of the great playwright, classical works included by Ostrovsky himself in the plays he wrote, as well as fragments of masterpieces of Russian musical classics created on the basis of his dramatic works.

Soloist of the Azerbaijan State Academic Musical Theater Yulia Heydarova, accompanist of the Baku Music Academy (BMA) Dilara Karimova, soloists of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater Nariman Aliyev and Ruslan Persan, laureate of international competitions Emil Malygin, BMA graduates Aminat Ahmadova and Nargiz Mammadova mesmerized the audience.

The young talents of the Tatar youth organization “Yashlek” performed fragments from the playwright’s famous plays, as well as poems by modern authors written in imitation of Ostrovsky’s style. Their magnificent performance left no one indifferent.