A high-profile group of invitation-only attendees, which included visiting Kyrgyz Culture and Information Minister Sultan Rayev, his Turkish counterpart, Ertuğrul Günay, Joint Administration of Turkic Culture and Art (TURKSOY) General Director Dusen Kaseinov and university rectors and politicians, gave the 250-strong multinational ensemble of performers a lengthy ovation following the performance Tuesday evening at the Ankara Opera House.The epic opera in three acts is based on the 11th century heroic legend of the same name, prominent in the oral traditions of the Turkic peoples. The legend describes the story of Köroğlu, who seeks to avenge the wrongful blinding of his father.
The opera was performed in the present-day Turkish used in Turkey, instead of its original Azeri Turkish, which made it a first on world stages, the opera's producers told the Anatolia news agency.
The spectacle, currently on a tour of Turkic states, is marking the 15th anniversary of TURKSOY, an international body that oversees cultural cooperation among its 14 member states. The opera was put onstage in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on Sept. 9, in Kazakhstan's Almaty on Sept. 12 and is scheduled for a staging in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku on Sept. 18. The opera's 250-strong cast and crew is formed by the orchestra, choir and dancers of the Maldibayev National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater of Kyrgyzstan, opera soloists and choir singers from various opera companies from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan and costume and set designers from the Turkish State Opera.
