This year's festival program was rich and varied: ballet, opera, classical and Arabic music, exhibitions and educational projects. The festival lasted two weeks, and its main events took place on the stage of the concert hall Emirates Palace Hotel - one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the world.
The participants in the Festival traditionally became a whole constellation of prominent artists of world scale. The festival opened with an opera gala concert with the participation of the Romanian soprano Angela Georgiu and the German tenor Jonas Kaufman, which was accompanied by the Bolshoi Theater Symphony Orchestra conducted by the eminent Austrian conductor Ion Marina. By the way, the official performance of the UAE anthem was also given precisely by the musicians of this orchestra.
The Bolshoi ballet troupe performed in Abu Dhabi with its own gala concert on March 23. The divertissement program included scenes and parts from the most famous performances in the world: Paquita, The Nutcracker, La Sylphide, Don Quixote, Talisman and Corsair, choreographed by M. Petipa, Yu. Grigorovich and other prominent choreographers .
Then, for the fans of Russian ballet, two performances of the ballet "Giselle" were edited by Yu. Grigorovich (March 25 and 26). Soloists of the Bolshoi Theater Maria Alexandrova, Ekaterina Shipulina, Natalya Osipova, Ekaterina Krysanova, Anna Antonicheva, Ivan Vasiliev, Egor Khromushin, Artem Shpilevsky pleased their performing skills and outstanding talent of the audience of the Art Festival.
On March 27, the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra gave another open-air opera gala concert (on the terraces of the Emirates Palace), with the participation of international star Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, a blind performer with an unusual voice. Conducted by the Marcello Cela Orchestra. Paola Sanguinetti (soprano) and Gianfranco Montresor (baritone) also took part in the concert. The audience enjoyed listening to their favorite arias from world famous operas: Ruslan and Lyudmila, Rigoletto, Pearl Seekers, Gianni Schicchi, La Traviata, Troubadour, Bohemia, and Italian folk songs Come to the sea "," Granada "," I want to live like that "," Mom "," Do not forget me "," Soldier in love ", a suite from the music for the movie" The Godfather "and other works.
The Lebanese opera singer, UN Goodwill Ambassador, Majid Al Rumi, musicians from Iran, Syria and other countries demonstrated their musical talent during the festival. The Abu Dhabi Music and Fine Arts Festival has already become a place of attraction for talents from around the world, and its sixth edition once again proved this. The number of people wishing to attend festival concerts is growing every year, and one can only hope that in the near future new concert halls and venues will appear in the emirate capital where the most famous bands and performers can perform.
