Melbourne Festival today announced one of the highlights from this year’s line-up: Layla and Majnun, a dance-opera created by American choreographer Mark Morris and legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble. The production – which will be the largest version of this modern classic ever seen in the West – will have an exclusive Melbourne season in October.

Layla and Majnun. Photograph © Susana Millman

The visually beautiful production is based on an opera by the early 20th-century Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli. Inspired by a story which first appeared in oral versions in the fifth century, it is as famous in the Middle East as Romeo and Juliet is in the West. It tells a tale of an impossible young love that leads to the lovers’ untimely deaths. Morris has described it as “an enlightening tragedy – a visually, musically and choreographically unified and self-contained concert piece”.

The work is performed by musicians from the celebrated Silkroad Ensemble together with 16 dancers from the Mark Morris Dance Group. At the heart of the work are Azerbaijani mugham vocalists, Alim Qasimov and his daughter and protégée Fargana Qasimova, whose vocal commands have earned them rockstar status, and a UNESCO...