{"id":10757,"date":"2026-06-23T12:01:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=10757"},"modified":"2026-06-23T12:01:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:01:02","slug":"andrei-serban-directs-leo-delibes-lakme-at-bucharest-national-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=10757","title":{"rendered":"Andrei \u0218erban directs L\u00e9o Delibes’ Lakm\u00e9 at Bucharest National Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

L\u00e9o Delibes’ opera Lakm\u00e9<\/em> will premiere at the Bucharest National Opera with performances scheduled for July 2 and July 3.<\/p>\n

The opera has been absent from the stage of the Bucharest institution for more than half a century, director Andrei \u0218erban noted.<\/p>\n

The director broadens the significance of Lakm\u00e9<\/em>, placing it among the great stories of impossible love, alongside works such as Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, Aida<\/em>, and Madama Butterfly<\/em>. The story set in colonial India thus becomes a \u201cparable about how political boundaries and fanaticism destroy human destinies.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I was nine years old, I think, when I listened to Lakm\u00e9<\/em> with my father on a recording featuring the great Russian bass Chaliapin, who sang the role of Nilakantha both before and after the October Revolution. I imagine the subject matter posed no problems for either the Tsarists or the Communists. It seems that the opera was also part of the repertoire in Bucharest during the 1950s, a period of harsh Stalinist censorship, with the libretto translated into Romanian ‘so that the people could understand it,’ although when the rhythms are fast, the words are difficult to make out in any language. According to Communist ideology, the Indians represented the oppressed proletariat, while the British colonizers embodied the enemy bourgeois-landowning class,” Andrei \u0218erban explained in a release quoted by Agerpres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It is true that it was rarely performed worldwide, primarily because it is not easy to find sopranos and tenors capable of meeting the demands of an extremely complex vocal score. Today, when post-Communist ideology is fashionable in all the arts, the opera’s splendid music and its simple, beautiful story with a tragic ending win over hearts rather than concepts, whatever their nature may be,\u201d he went on.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur production focuses on the love affair between two people from different cultures during wartime. It is entirely natural to compare the context of the opera with the world we live in today, where different religious beliefs intersect with power struggles and where love is extinguished. Lakm\u00e9 is not only a young woman discovering life through love; she is also someone who believes in the power of hope and forgiveness in a violent world. Her final sacrifice carries a significance that goes beyond the personal gesture of a lover who refuses to live without her beloved. It comes from a foreign, mysterious civilization that reminds us of the universality of faith, hope, and love,” \u0218erban added.<\/p>\n

The cast includes: M\u0103d\u0103lina Barbu, Monica Luca as Lakm\u00e9; Bogdan Mihai, Alexandru Badea (guest artist) as G\u00e9rald; Leonard Bernard as Nilakantha; Alexandru Constantin, Adrian M\u0103rcan as Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric; Mihaela I\u0219pan, Martiniana Antonie (guest artist) as Mallika; Daniela C\u00e2rstea, Cristina Eremia as Ellen; Liviu Indric\u0103u, Andrei Laz\u0103r as Hadji; Sorana Negrea, Sidonia Nica as Mistress Bentson; Stanca Maria Manoleanu, Anna St\u0103nescu (guest artist) as Rose; Maria Gogonea – Lakm\u00e9’s Double; and Andrada Corlat, Serin Jemaa, Alexandra S\u00e2rbei, Alexandra Stroe as Lakm\u00e9’s Sisters.<\/p>\n

(Photo:\u00a0Radub85<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Dreamstime.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

simona@romania-insider.com<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L\u00e9o Delibes’ opera Lakm\u00e9 will premiere at the Bucharest National Opera with performances scheduled for July 2 and July 3. The opera has been absent from the stage of the Bucharest institution for more than half a century, director Andrei \u0218erban noted. The director broadens the significance of Lakm\u00e9, placing it among the great stories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}