Shponka and His Aunt is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in one act by composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 Anastasia Bespalova

Anastasia Bespalova

-Biography:Bespalova is a graduate of the Urals Mussorgsky State Conservatoire where she studied music composition under Vladimir Kobekin. In 2003 she won the First Opus young composers competition in Moscow. She later won the Mariinsky Theatre's young composers competition for an opera based on a...

. The opera uses a Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by Arkady Zastyrets which is based upon the story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...

. The opera was commissioned by the Mariinsky Theatre

Mariinsky Theatre

The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...

 along with two other new operas, Svetlana Nesterova

Svetlana Nesterova

Svetlana Nesterova is a Russian composer and violinist. Since 2002 she has served on the musical instrument faculty at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.-Biography:...

's The Lawsuit

The Lawsuit

The Lawsuit is a comic opera in one act by composer Svetlana Nesterova. The opera uses a Russian libretto by Vera Kupriyanova and the composer which is based upon the story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol...

and Vyacheslav Kruglik

Vyacheslav Kruglik

Vyacheslav Kruglik is a Russian composer and conductor. He is currently a member of the orchestral conducting faculty at the Saint Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts.- Biography :...

's The Carriage

The Carriage (opera)

The Carriage is an opera in one act by composer Vyacheslav Kruglik. The opera uses a Russian libretto by Vera Kupriyanova and the composer which is based upon the story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol...

, all based on stories by Gogol. The three operas premiered together on 21 June 2009 during the Mariinsky Theatre's summer festival.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 21 June 2009 (Conductor: Valery Gergiev Valery Gergiev Valery Abisalovich Gergiev is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.- Early life :Gergiev,... )
Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka	bass baritone	Andrei Serov
Aunt Vasilisa Tsupchevska	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Elizaveta Zakharova
Grigory Grigorievich Storchenko	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Andrei Popov

External links

• Shponka and His Aunt playbill at the Mariinsky Theatre