Particularly impressive in the central role, the young Kazakh-American, Los Angeles based tenor Timur above gave a lovely performance, a calm center in the midst of the craziness, looking as if he had wandered in from a Soviet silent film version of Candide. It would be fun to see him with his glam-rock band Timur and The Dime Museum. Review by Richard Loranger "Because opera is voice, and the voices literally blew us away. In particular Timur Bekbosunov, an LA-based Kazakh-American singer, carried the work as the central figure of Kharms (a.k.a. Pushkin, his preferred nickname) with a massive range of octave and style that shifted piece by piece, song by song, aria by aria. "
The music, performed by a small, agile orchestra neatly conducted by Bryan Nies, is a captivating mixture of minimalist arpeggios coupled with jazz. There’s also a little Eastern European styling thrown in for good measure. The talented cast, which includes the inimitable soprano Laura Bohn as Fefjulka and the rich-voiced mezzo Nikola Printz as Our Mama (and in the last act, Stalin), performs the work’s many duets and trios with precision and passion. Tenor Timur Bekbosunov handles the title role capably and flamboyantly.