Moscow (Sputnik) – The opening of the exhibition was arranged to coincide with the last premiere of the opera house's 27th season, Verdi's Il Trovatore.
The exhibition's main theme is the fate of Aleppo, one of the world's oldest cities, and its citizens. Works by Sputnik's prominent photographers such as Valery Melnikov, Ilya Pitalev, Mikhail Voskresensky and Mikhail Alaeddin depict the tragic outcome of the military conflict that has had a devastating effect on the civilians' lives and the city itself. The exhibition shows that the tragedy of war is timeless, connecting the bloody Medieval conflict that was used as the plot for Verdi's opera and the XXI century events in Syria.
"The exhibition features photographs taken by great artists and brave journalists in Syria's Aleppo engulfed in war, and porcelain sculptures of Ella Adamova," Anna Gribkova-Tkhostova, the director of the Museum of Helikon Opera said. She pointed out that the exhibition shows that foreign culture "can trigger not only a wish to destroy, to wipe the alien from the face of the Earth," but also amaze and interest people, driving them to create something in the spirit of that foreign culture.
Sputnik photojournalist Valery Melnikov who won an award at World Press Photo 2017 explained how he sees the aftermath of the Syrian conflict.
"A looming catastrophe, the chaos of war replaced peace and quiet. The future of Syria and its citizens disappeared in plumes of smoke from another missile that had just exploded. The country that I had fallen in love with a few years ago has been shattered," Melnikov concluded.
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