Astana Opera

Stand at the foot of the steps for a moment and feel the wind. In Astana it rarely stops. It crosses the open steppe for hundreds of kilometres before it reaches this square, and it carries a dry, clean smell of grass and dust. Then look up. A long row of pale columns rises in front of you, warm and cream-coloured against a wide sky. It looks like something from an older European capital, but it stands in one of the youngest capitals in the world.

This is the Astana Opera, the national opera and ballet theatre of Kazakhstan. It opened in 2013, which makes it very new by the standards of opera houses. Many of the great theatres of Europe are two or three centuries old. Here, the paint, the marble and the gilding are barely a decade old. And yet the building speaks in a classical language on purpose. It was designed to look settled and permanent from the very first day.

To understand why, it helps to know a little about the city around you. Astana became the capital of Kazakhstan in the late 1990s, when the government moved here from Almaty in the south. Since then, a whole new city has grown on the left bank of the Ishim River. The name of the city has changed too. It was renamed Nur-Sultan in 2019, and then returned to Astana in 2022. Through all of that, buildings like this one gave the capital its shape.

Many of Astana's landmarks look toward the future. Think of the tall glass towers, the huge tent-like shopping centre and the golden observation tower that rises above the main boulevard. The opera house takes the opposite path. It looks back to the neoclassical style. That means columns, symmetry, triangular pediments and carved stone details inspired by ancient Greece and Rome. The project was strongly backed by the country's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. It was meant as a statement: Kazakhstan would have a stage to stand beside the old houses of Milan, Vienna and Moscow.

Here is the first thing many visitors miss. The building is not purely European. Look closely at the decoration, both outside and especially inside. You will find Kazakh ornament woven into the classical frame. There are curling, horn-like motifs that also appear on felt carpets, on yurts and on traditional jewellery across the steppe. The overall form is Western, but the small patterns carry the visual memory of nomadic craft. The result is a conversation between two traditions, carried out in stone and plaster.

Walk inside, if you have a ticket for a performance or a guided tour, and the mood changes at once. The wind disappears. The air is still and warm, and the light turns golden. Marble floors shine under your feet, and wide staircases sweep upward toward the upper foyers. Much of the interior finishing was carried out with the help of Italian craftsmen and designers. You can feel that influence in the polished stone, the gilded mouldings and the careful balance of every room.

The heart of the building is the main auditorium. It follows the classic horseshoe shape of the great Italian opera houses. Tiers of boxes curve around the hall in rich red and gold. Above them hangs a large crystal chandelier. The horseshoe shape is not only beautiful. It is practical. It brings many seats close to the stage and helps the human voice travel without amplification. In opera, the singers fill the hall with their own natural sound, so the shape of the room really matters.

The theatre holds more than one stage. Alongside the main hall there is a smaller chamber hall. It is used for recitals, chamber music and more intimate performances. So on any given evening, the building may hold a full Verdi opera in one space and a quiet song recital in another. Behind the stage, out of sight, are rehearsal rooms, workshops and costume studios. A house like this is a small factory of music, sets and fabric.

Now for the second surprise. Kazakh opera is older than this building, and older than the capital. Its roots go back to the 1930s, when composers in Soviet Kazakhstan began to write operas based on local legends, poetry and folk melody. One of the best loved is Birzhan and Sara by the composer Mukan Tulebayev. It tells the story of two real nineteenth-century singer-poets, called akyns, who met in a famous song contest. That opera was chosen to open this house in 2013.

That choice tells you something important. The theatre presents the classic Western repertoire — Verdi, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, the great ballets like Swan Lake and Giselle. But it also keeps Kazakh works alive on a large modern stage. In the same season you might see a Russian ballet, an Italian opera and a Kazakh epic. The akyn tradition, where poets competed by improvising verses to the sound of the dombra, a two-stringed lute, finds a new home under the chandelier.

The ballet company deserves a special mention. Ballet has deep roots across the former Soviet world, and dancers from Kazakhstan train in a strict classical tradition. The Astana Opera ballet tours abroad and appears at international festivals. If you only have one evening in the city, a ballet performance can be a good choice. You need no language at all to follow it. The story lives in the music, the movement and the costumes.

Come back outside and look at the building in different light. In the long summer evenings, the low sun turns the columns honey-coloured, and the facade glows against a deep blue sky. In winter the scene is completely different. Astana is one of the coldest capitals on earth, and snow can cover the square for months. Then the warm light from the windows feels like a lantern on the steppe. People arrive in heavy coats and fur hats, and they leave them in the cloakroom before the curtain rises.

Before you walk away, turn and take one more look at the colonnade. Count the columns, and notice how the building holds the same calm shape from every angle. Listen to the wind again, and to the cars moving along the wide avenues. A little more than a decade ago, this was a building site on open ground. Now it is the place where a young capital gathers to listen... to old music, and to its own.