A Day at the Museum, A Night at the Opera

Some days in Bishkek are especially interesting. Yesterday was one of my favorite. It was Saturday, the day a group of us usually gather for breakfast and conversation at Sierra Coffee. Yesterday was typical of the Koffee Klatch. I arrived a little early to stake out some tables. There were the usual suspects arriving around ten a.m. But the nice thing was there were three new young people who joined us. Victor, who is a student in English at iLAca Academy, and Tommy, a new teacher at the London School, and Asela, a Kyrgyz. Then later the group grew to about 14. There is something really wonderful when that many people come.

An Afternoon at The Fine Arts Museum

After noon, we finally managed to get moving and four of us, John Herring, Wai Shu, and Jesse Smith, went to the State Fine Arts Museum where we saw three exhibits of exceptional value. Two are temporary traveling exhibits, one of photographs of Kyrgyzstan by a Turkish artist, the other an exhibition of contemporary art titled Lingua Franca/tilli.

A permanent exhibit of textiles, jewelry, and clothing was very interesting. Most of the items on display are from the first part of the twentieth century. The loomed rugs and carpets and embroidered costumes were striking, along with the coral and metal jewelry.

The photographic exhibit was of colored images of everyday life in Kyrgyzstan. They were an excellent series of photographs capturing human subjects from many areas of the country. My favorite image was of a young boy in an ak-kalpak hugging his taigan, a sight-hound of the steppes related to Afghan-hounds, but there were also other nice images.

The Lingua Franca/tilli exhibition presents the work of nine artists from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan who see art as a vehicle for social criticism. Through the language of contemporary art, creative people express their active civil position, protesting against racism and nationalism through the language of modern art. A set of small sculptures that play with the ever present image of Lenin was remarkable. The video installations are very creative, but my favorite was a series of icon-like creations by a Tashkent naivist in cotton and wool mounted on cardboard that portrayed scenes from everyday life. And there is a knock-out eye chart created with images that represent the stereotype ideas of Central Asia. As John noted, if this were in a museum in America, the eye chart would be the poster and we would all have taken one home. Lingua Franca/tili is concerned with problems in politics, history and linguistics. The exhibition runs until 1 November and is worth a visit if you are in Bishkek.

It is also high season for weddings in Bishkek. The Fine Arts Museum is across the street from the Hyatt Hotel, whose fountain is a favorite place for wedding parties to gather and take photos. Jesse and I went outside and watched the spectacle of multiple wedding parties being hustled into photo ops by videographers and photographers. One party had 15 women in matching coral bridesmaid dresses. It was a sight to see.

After everyone exited the museum, we crossed Soviet Street to go to the Opera and Ballet theatre to pick up some tickets for some events. John, Tommy and I needed tickets for the Kyrgyz Opera Ai-Churek for last night and Wai Shu, Jesse and I decided to go to the ballet Sunday evening which is based on Hoffman's Tale of The Vienna Woods with music by Strauss.

We split up at that point. John and I took a look at a new German wine and specialty store, Kritzer, located at Togtogula and Tunustunov. Nice wine selection, but pricey. I had hoped to find a corkscrew, but they don't sell them. I did buy some really nice goat cheese. There is a nice offering of cheeses from Italy, Spain, and France and Olive Oils and vinegars. I will go back.

After that I went home for an apple and goat cheese snack. John came back to pick me up and we went to the opera to meet Tommy.

A Night at the Opera

The opera,  Ai-Churek, is the first opera to be written in Kyrgyz. Created as a part of a move by the then Stalinist Cultural apparatus to create regional arts throughout the republics of the USSR, it was created by three authors usually identified as Vlasov-Fere-Maldybayevm.  Abdylas Maldybaev (1906 – 1978) was a Kyrgyz composer, actor, and operatic tenor singer. Maldybaev was one of the composers of the state anthem of the Kirghiz SSR and is still renowned for his operatic composition. He helped popularize Kyrgyz music by skillfully using Western European techniques. He is pictured on the Kyrgyz one som banknote. Maldybayev provided folk melodies and composed music which was then organized and prepared by Russian composers Vladimir Vlasov and Vladimir Fere into six Soviet state opera and other works. I have seen two of the operas now and have enjoyed the music. Vlasov and Fere used a lot of "borrowed" techniques from other Russian and Western composers. 

But while I enjoyed the music, I could not help from being irritated by the constant level of chatter from the young people seated behind us. A number of teachers bring their high school aged students to the Kyrgyz operas because the subject matter is often historical or mythic events in the Kyrgyz national story. Ai-Churek is based on the Manas Epic, for example. Unfortunately, the students are not prepared well in the etiquette appropriate to live performance at opera and ballet. And their teachers do not sit close enough to them to exercise appropriate control.

But it is not just young people who need some training. Last week the middle-aged woman next to me kept receiving telephone calls and talking on her phone during the performance. And the sounds of call and message tones seem to echo one another at every performance. We have a long way to go to get people to save their witty comments until the intermissions and to silence their mobile phones during performances.

I've decided to begin in my own small way to address the problem by discussing it with my students as a conversation topic. Maybe I can even develop a lesson plan and vocabulary lesson for use in English classes in Kyrgyzstan.