The performance was primarily scheduled for August 10-13. However, due to warm welcome by audiences, it was extended to have one more performance on August 17.
The performance is a re-creation of the text and design of ‘Ashura Opera,’ by Gharibpour, in collaboration with the Aran Puppet Group.
Behzad Abdipour composed the music, while Mohammad Motamedi, Mostafa Mahmoudi and Mohammadreza Sadeqi are the vocalists of the performance.
The ‘Ashura Opera’ puppet show is a blend of music, puppetry, poetry and ta’zieh (Iranian Passion play).
‘Ashura Opera’ premiered in Tehran in 2008. It has been staged in France, Italy, Poland and several other countries. Gharibpour’s ‘Ashura Opera’ has been staged in many international theater festivals, in Spain, Algeria, Syria, Poland and Italy. The play was warmly received at the Charleville-Mezieres’s International Puppet Theatre Festival in France, 2011, when it was given two extra performances.
Ashura, the 10th day of the first month of the Islamic calendar, Muharram, is the climax of the mourning processions for Imam Hussein (PBUH), a grandson of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his true companions, who were martyred in the modern-day Iraqi city of Karbala by the forces of the second Umayyid caliph, Yazid.