Tadzhik Theater of Opera and Ballet

(full name, S. Aini Academic Tadzhik Theater of Opera and Ballet), the leading musical theater in the Tadzhik SSR. It was organized in Dushanbe in 1940 out of the Tadzhik Musical Theater, which had been established four years earlier. In 1941 the theater took part in a ten-day festival of Tadzhik art and music in Moscow, where it performed the first Tadzhik operas, The Vose Uprising by Balasanian and the The Blacksmith Kova by Balasanian and Bobokalo-nov, as well as the ballet Two Roses by Lenskii and the musical play Lola by Balasanian and Urbakh.

The theater has won recognition for its outstanding productions of the national operas Takhir and Zukhra by Lenskii (1944), Bakhtior and Nisso (1954) by Balasanian, Pulat and Gul’ru by Saifiddinov (1957), Komde and Madan by Shakhida (1960), The Return by Sabzanov (1967), and Cursed by the Peopleby Dustmukhammedov (1973). Its production of Balasanian’s ballet Leili and Medzhnun, first performed in 1947, was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1949. A third version of the ballet was staged in 1970. The theater has also given fine performances of Lenskii’s Dil’bar (1954), Vol’berg’s The Pale Blue Carpet (1958), Ter-Osipov’s Son of the Homeland (1967), and Ashrafi’s Timur Malik (Love and the Sword, 1972). Since 1944 the theater has also been staging Russian and Western European classics (operas are performed in Russian) and works by Soviet composers from other republics. The theater’s company includes (since 1954) Tadzhik graduates of the voice division of the Moscow Conservatory and the Leningrad Choreographic School.

Among those who have contributed to the growth of the theater are the conductors L. G. Kaufman, L. Ia. Levin, D. E. Dalgat, and E. D. Airapetiants; the directors R. A. Korokh, S. Saidmuradov, V. Ia. Reinbakh, B. M. Martov, A. A. Maka-rovskii, and A. N. Bakaleinikov; the choreographers K. Ia. Go-leizovskii, A. I. Protsenko, G. Valamat-zade, and L. A. Sere-brovskaia; and the stage designers E. G. Chemodurov, V. I. Fufygin, and V. S. Suslov.

In 1975 the theater’s leading singers were People’s Artists of the USSR Kh. Mavlianova and A. Babakulov and People’s Artists of the Tadzhik SSR R. Tolmasov and L. Kabirova. Among the ballet soloists were People’s Artist of the USSR M. Sabirova and People’s Artists of the Tadzhik SSR B. Isaeva and M. Burkhanov. The theater’s conductors were People’s Artists of the Tadzhik SSR I. Abdullaev and L. A. Ianovitskii, and its principal director was Sh. Nizamov. Other members of the company included the choral conductors Kh. M. Mullokandov and A. V. Melekhin (both Honored Artists of the Tadzhik SSR), the principal choreographer V. Kh. Piari (Honored Art Worker of the Bashkir SSR), and the stage designer R. Safarov. The theater was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1941.