The Chinese Women performed by the Trickster Theatre performance

Gluck’s music was often played at the court of Catherine the Great and in the home theatres of her nobles.

Audiences will have the opportunity to hear this currently rare performed work in a puppet opera format and to learn about the popular opera genres of the era (opera seria, opera buffa, pastorale), style and manners typical of the European salons of the late 18th century in a playful way.

The performers in the show will be puppets with special mechanisms, creating a three-dimensional and moving soundscape. The baroque theatre has always been an engine of progress, an investor, and a customer of new technology. The creators of The Chinese Women follow the Baroque tradition not only in its music – they create an opera rich in modern theatre technology.

Christoph Willibald Gluck’s chamber opera The Chinese Women is staged by the famous Trickster puppet theatre in Moscow. The Trickster has two Golden Masks for opera productions under its belt. This elegant salon piece, a mini-opera about opera, will combine the Baroque beauty created by the Bekritskaja sisters, renowned artists in Russia and Europe, with the futuristic concept of the directors of The Trickster, Vyacheslav Ignatov and Maria Litvinova.

You’ll hear Gluck’s spectacular and ironic opera in Russian, translated by Katerina Pospelova. And the soloists of the INTRADA vocal ensemble, the soloists of the Persimfans orchestra, and the musical director of the production, conductor, and multi-instrumentalist Peter Aidu, are responsible for the authentic beauty of the score in this performance. They are all titled specialists in the 18th-century music.

This project – like everything the Trickster does – aims to promote the genre among the widest possible audience.

The show is a co-production of Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve and the Trickster Theatre.

Age limit: 12+