Orango

D. Shostakovich Opera 16+

Unfinished opera buffa

Libretto by Alexey Tolstoy and Alexander Starchakov

Instrumentation by Gerard McBurney

Sets are created according to theatrical sketches of Alexandra Exter

The prologue to the opera was written in 1932. The world premiere was performed in Perm in 2015. Running time: 35 minutes

The operaOrango, which was for many years considered lost (or rather, its prologue was), was discovered in the archives of the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture in 2004.

Shostakovich started working on Orango (from orangutan), which is set in the Soviet Union, in 1932 when the whole of the science and art worlds were seized by the idea of creating a super-being, an experimental half human, half animal.