The anniversary competition of young opera singers named after Elena Obraztsova starts in St. Petersburg. This year, more than 80 contestants from Russia, countries of Europe and Central Asia, and even Australia will take part in it.

The competition will be held in three stages. Each of them should present a complex program composed of fragments of popular operas and chamber works of Western European and Russian composers. Turkmenistan will be represented by Dunyagozel Begalieva-a 5th year student of the Maya Kulieva National Conservatory. She is a student of the famous opera singer and teacher Zhanna Sayan. The young vocalist with her teacher prepared a very serious program from 8 works for the competition.

According to Dunyagozel, every day she is engaged in 3-4 hours. The repertoire is complicated, for almost an hour it goes on sings alone. It is like in professional sports, before starting training, athletes knead to warm up muscles. The same is with vocalists. They do relevant vocalization exercises that put the ligaments in order, clean intonation, knead the respiratory organs and the vocal apparatus.

Dunyagozel’s coloratura soprano requires great attention. This means that in no case can the singer eat and drink cold, hot, spicy or salty, take care of drafts and smoke, too dry air in the room. In a word, a singer should observe the so -called hygiene of the voice, protect health.

“But for a successful career, the singer needs not only skills and abilities, it is necessary more,” Zhanna Sayan says. - This is artistry, musicality, charisma, the ability to make contact with the public through music, but of course luck. It is also important that the singer is well read, have an idea of opera and chamber art, a rich inner world. To do this, you need to go to exhibitions and concerts, perform more at concert venues, read good books, go out into nature ... Well, and, of course, a voice. When there is no beautiful natural voice, it is difficult to become a good singer. No workouts, and classes will help here. It is necessary to have prolonged performance, endurance, and patience.”

“When we first applied to participate in the Elena Obraztsova competition, the organizers greeted us very warmly. They were happy that vocalists from Turkmenistan joined the ranks of the contestants. Last year we were greeted very warmly. And this time we were invited again, and after a preliminary audition, we were among 80 participants from different countries near and far abroad. By the way, this year the same accompanist will perform with us as last year, a professional with a capital P, Maria Chernova,” Zhanna Sayan said.

...Dunyagozel comes from Kerki, Lebap region (an interesting coincidence - Medeniet Shakhberdiyeva, the “golden voice” of Turkmenistan, also comes from there). Dunyagozel studied at a music school, and then at the Lebap Music College in the special piano department. Starting from the 3rd year, she began to regularly travel to Ashgabat to study vocals professionally with Zhanna Sayan. And as a result, after graduating from music school, Dunyagozel entered the Turkmen National Conservatory named after Maya Kulieva in the vocal class of Zhanna Sayan.

By the way, Zhanna Sayan is a titled vocalist. She is the first prize winner of three prestigious international competitions. She took her first steps in the world of opera singing in Kazakhstan and continued her education in Turkmenistan with outstanding Turkmen opera singer, vocal teacher, People's Artist of the USSR Medeniet Shakhberdiyeva. With great gratitude to the illustrious mentor, she continues her coloratura vocal school. Zhanna Sayan also completed many internships and master classes abroad. Early on, Zhanna worked at the Opera and Ballet Theater as a leading soloist and performed the main roles, was a soloist-vocalist of the Philharmonic, Zhanna Sayan’s conductor and mentor was at that time Nury Mukhatov. Today she is a teacher at the department of vocal performance at the Turkmen Conservatory.

Her student is a match for her. Despite her young age, Dunyagozel is the winner of first prizes in international competitions in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the Turkmen state prize “Altyn Asyr”, and she will take part in the Elena Obraztsova competition for the second time.

The competition to the 85th anniversary of the birth of People's Artist of the USSR Elena Obraztsova will be held on July 21–27. Russian and foreign performers from 18 to 32 years old will take part in it.

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