There is a royal mood in the opera and ballet theater. They are preparing for the premiere of the first Armenian national opera, Tigran Chukhajyan’s “Arshak B”, in the original Italian language.

The Armenian opera written in Constantinople two centuries ago was the first in the region. After Chukhajyan’s death, music in general was considered lost. It was found in the 1930s and re-edited, in the 1940s the Armenian libretto of the opera was staged, in 1991, in 2007 it was staged in episodes.

Last year, there was a concert performance of the opera in the original version, now, according to the director of the National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet, conductor Karen Durgaryan, there is already an opportunity to watch the original opera.

Khoja-Einatyan’s “Arshak the Second” is also important and has a place in the theater, and it will always be on the schedule, but we have to show the original,” Durgaryan emphasized in a conversation with “Azatutyan”.

The musical director and conductor of the performance, Italian Donato Renzetti, told “Azatutyan” that Chukhajian was discovering Verdi’s contemporary composer for him: how melodic, how dramatic…

Educated in Italy, Chukhajian was able to create an opera in the name of the Armenian king in the Ottoman Empire, which, according to Karen Durgaryan, was already a heroism. The musical history written on the basis of the controversial information of Pavstos Buzand and Movses Khorenatsi about the relations between Armenia, Persia and Byzantium could not be understood ambiguously. Moreover, in Constantinople, works related to Armenian history and culture were seen as factors encouraging Armenian nationalism, and it is possible that the opera was never fully performed in the Ottoman Empire for this very reason.

“In this sense, Chukhajyan is, of course, a hero for writing an opera in the name of the Armenian king in Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire. I don’t want to go deep into politics, because I am not a specialist, I can simply state that with value, we are obliged to show this value, if we stand around the idea that the first opera was written by Tigran Chukhajyan,” said Karen Durgaryan. :

The first performance will be on March 22, opera fans will have two more chances to see it this month, on March 24 and 26.