"Seven Beauties" ballet thrills audience in Moscow

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev's "Seven Beauties" ballet has been successfully staged in Moscow Provincial Theater. The new production thrilled ballet lovers in Moscow. 

The ballet was timed to the 103rd anniversary of the eminent composer Gara Garayev and the 880th anniversary of great poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi.

The new production was by famous ballet masters, People's Artists Rafiga Akhundova and Magsud Mammadov.

The ballet was choreographed by former soloist of the State Opera and Ballet, choreographer of the Moscow Provincial Theater's ballet theater Vitaly Akhundov. 

The ballet will be also presented to the audience on March 30.

"Seven Beauties" is an Azerbaijani ballet composed by Gara Garayev to mark the 800th anniversary of Nizami Ganjavi. The libretto by I. Hidayetzade, Yuri Slonimsky and Sabit Rahman is based on motifs from Ganjavi’s "Seven beauties" poem.

The plot of the ballet "Seven Beauties" is based on the poem of the great Nizami Ganjavi. A story about love, friendship, betrayal and justice inspired the outstanding composer to compose this ballet.

Having synthesized Eastern and Western musical traditions, his works cover essentially all genres. The works by Gara Garayev are performed all over the world.

Garayev inherited his love of music from his parents. His father Abulfaz Garayev was a famous pediatrician in Baku. Abulfaz Garayev was known for his kindness and generosity. When patients were too poor to pay for treatment, he often left money under the prescription that he had written out for them.

He knew Azerbaijani folk music very well and loved to sing. Garayev's mother, Sona Khanim was among the first graduates of the Music School, the Baku branch of the Russian Music Society.

At the age of eight, Garayev first entered the junior music school at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire. His exceptional musical talents let him to study simultaneously in two faculties at the conservatoire. His teachers were Georgi Sharoyev, Leonid Rudolf, and the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli.

In 1938, Garayev composed his first musical piece, a cantata "The Song of the Heart" to the poem by Rasul Rza. It was performed in Moscow's Bolshoi Theater in the same year. He was only 20 years old at the time.

Garayev returned to Baku in 1941. He began teaching students at the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Society.

In 1945, both he and Jovdat Hajiyev wrote the "Motherland" opera, for which they were awarded a prestigious Stalin Prize. At the age of 30, Garayev was again awarded this prize for his symphonic poem "Leyli and Majnun", based on the same-titled famous work of Nizami Ganjavi.

In 1952, under the direction of the choreographer P. A. Gusev, Garayev's "Seven Beauties" ballet was staged at the Azerbaijani Theater of Opera and Ballet. Based on Nizami Ganjavi's famous poem, "Seven Beauties", it became the first Azerbaijani ballet and opened a new chapter in the history of classical music of Azerbaijan.

His ballet, "Path of Thunder", staged in 1958, was dedicated to racial conflicts in South Africa. In the same year, he wrote the score for the documentary film" A Story About the Oil Workers of the Caspian Sea", directed by Roman Karmen and set at the Oil Rocks.

Through his life, Garayev wrote nearly 110 musical pieces, including ballets, operas, symphonic and chamber pieces, solos for piano, cantatas, songs and marches, and rose to prominence not only in Azerbaijan, but also worldwide.