Double-bill ballet performance to kick off Wichita Grand Opera season

The Wichita Grand Opera will open its season with a rare double-bill performance of two Russian ballets April 23..

It’s perhaps unsurprising for the opera, which prides itself on its commitment to standalone ballet – an anomaly among opera companies.

“It’s something very different, you know, not always ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Swan Lake,’ ” said its president and CEO Parvan Bakardiev.

Patrons at Century II on April 23 will be treated to full-length performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” and a contemporary re-imagining of Bizet’s classic “Carmen.”

Each ballet is expected to last approximately 50 minutes, separated by a 15-minute intermission.

After appearing in last season’s productions of “Cinderella” and “Swan Lake,” Nurlan Kinerbaev returns to Wichita to play the role of Romeo, opposite Olga Gudkova, who will make her debut as Juliet.

Rodion Shchedrin’s adaptation of Bizet’s “Carmen,” first produced in 1967, has been hailed critically over the years as a tongue-in-cheek take on the opera. In it, Don Jose, a corporal in the military, falls in love with a Spanish girl named Carmen, only to see her affections sway to another.

“The theme of our whole season is eternal love,” Bakardiev said. “There is something for everybody. If they have good taste, they’ll be there.”

The Wichita Grand Opera produced less-popular operas last season, such as Offenbach’s “The Grand Duchess” and Verdi’s “Don Carlo.”

Bakardiev said the main benefit of putting on rare operas was the international publicity the Wichita Grand Opera received for doing so.

This year, though, Bakardiev said the opera is returning to more traditional works.

“Everybody knows ‘Boheme,’ and a lot of people know ‘Rigoletto,’ ” Bakardiev said. “If they don’t know ‘Pirates of Penzance,’ then they’re really deers in the headlights.”

Wichita Grand Opera is producing the entirety of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” at Bradley Fair for its annual Opera on the Lake event.

It will continue to tour around the state in 2016, stopping for performances May 22 in McPherson and Oct. 15 in Overland Park.

Its performance of Puccini’s “Turandot” in Overland Park last year, in the shadow of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, was well received.

“We’re back in Overland Park by popular demand, and we are very proud of that because they have a pretty high standard of adjudication,” Bakardiev said. “Their audience is very familiar with opera, so we’re delighted, and hopefully we can live up to the expectations.”

Edward Lada, associate conductor at Wichita Grand Opera, said it hopes to attract new audiences through its performances at Bradley Fair and in other places this year.

“It’s kind of the same argument – you don’t need to be a student of film history to go and appreciate a great movie,” Lada said. “You don’t need any special knowledge to appreciate an opera. The music will speak to you on its own.”

Season tickets to Wichita Grand Opera, ranging from $63 to $255, are available at www.wichitagrandopera.org, as well as individual tickets. Students can purchase $20 tickets for every show as well.

The opera’s 2016 season is:

▪ Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Bizet’s “Carmen,” 7 p.m. April 23 at Century II Concert Hall; tickets $37 to $85. A double-billing of two one-act ballets put on by the Russian National Ballet Theatre.

▪ Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance,” 8 p.m. May 20 and 21 at Bradley Fair; tickets $37 to $85. This farcical opera involving “sentimental pirates, dim-witted young lovers, and an eccentric Major-General” will premiere on an outdoor stage at Bradley Fair, on the lake. There are places on the plaza where people can watch the show for free.

▪ Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” 7 p.m. Sept. 3 at Century II Concert Hall; tickets $37 to $85. “Rigoletto” is based on a controversial play by Victor Hugo, perhaps best known as the author of “Les Miserables.” “Verdi is a master of melodies,” Lada said. “ ‘Rigoletto’ is probably going to have the tunes that you’ll leave there singing, the ‘La donna e mobile’ – that’s going to stick in your head.”

▪ Puccini’s “La Boheme,” 7 p.m. Oct. 1 at Century II Concert Hall; tickets $37 to $85. “La Boheme” follows the story of four struggling artists in Paris’ Latin Quarter throughout 525,600 minutes of their lives. WGO bills it as “the greatest love story in opera.” Bakardiev said “La Boheme” as a whole will affect opera-goers. “Verdi is like – you get great appetizers when you go to a restaurant and you remember every single one of them,” he said. “Puccini is like – you’re going to get a main course and you don’t remember all the details of the main course, because it’s the overall impact for the whole evening.”

For more information, visit www.wichitagrandopera.org.

This story was originally published April 16, 2016 at 10:35 AM with the headline "Double-bill ballet performance to kick off Wichita Grand Opera season."