PINOCCHIO Weinberg, Anna Hop – Polish National Opera and Ballet

Toymaker Gepetto creates a wooden puppet toy named Pinocchio and wishes on a star that he would be a real boy. A kindly Blue Fairy appears and grants his wish bringing Pinocchio to life. With a long nose which grows longer when he lies, Pinocchio learns that he must prove himself worthy in order to make his father’s wish come true. Originally conceived by Carlo Collodi, the Pinocchio story has seen adaptations over the eras. Here Polish National Ballet presents a danced version to music by Mieczysław Weinberg, the Polish-born Soviet composer Mieczylaw Weinberg, who has the dubious honour of having suffered the fury of anti-Semitism in both its Nazi and Stalinist variants. Until recently better known for his symphonies, Weinberg’s works for stage, such as Die Passagerin, are increasingly seen in European theatres. Pinocchio is based on Buratino, a reworking of the original tale by Alexei Tolstoy, a distant cousin of the famous writer. Inspired by commedia dell’arte, burattino is Italian for &#