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HBSO opens new season with French music By Bradley Winterton Pham Khanh Ngoc will perform at the concert - PHOTO: COURTESY OF HBSO HCMC - Bizet’s Carmen, Gounod’s Faust and Donizetti’s La fille du regiment are all great French operas, and extracts from them feature in the opening concert of the new season by HCMC Ballet, Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) to be given on March 28 in the Saigon Opera House. Carmen takes pride of place with an extensive series of numbers occupying the whole second half of the evening. The concert begins, however, with the overture by Gounod to his opera Mireille, followed by the choral item “Farandole” from the same work. Written in 1864, the opera concerns the love between Mireille and Vincent. A farandole is a dance performed in a circle and this example opens the opera’s second act where villagers are waiting for a race to begin. Next comes a very famous item, “The Swan” from Saint-Saens’ Carnival of Animals. The cello solo in the piece will be performed by the HBSO’s Meritorious Artist Nguyen Tan Anh. Charpentier’s most famous stage work is Louise (1900), and the most famous item in it is Louise’s hymn to love, “Depuis le jour” (‘Since the day’). This will be sung by Meritorious Artist Tran Hong Vy. Another celebrated item follows, the “Bell song” from Delibes’ opera Lakme (1883). The opera is set in India, and Lakme is the daughter of a Brahmin priest. Her Bell Song covers a wide vocal range in the “coloratura soprano” style. It will be sung by Pham Khanh Ngoc. Gounod then returns with an aria from Faust, sung by Dao Mac. The opera was premiered in 1859, and tells of Faust’s pact with the devil. The aria we’ll hear is “Avant de quitter les lieux” (‘Before I leave this town’). It has been recorded by many famous baritones including Hvorostovsky and Fischer Dieskau. Donizetti was an Italian composer but he wrote his comic opera La fille du regiment (1840) to a French libretto while living in Paris. …

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Ethnic students in Trần Quốc Tuấn Primary School in Chư Drăng Commune of Krông Pa District enjoy reading in the school library. — VNA/VNS Photo Hồng Điệp GIA LAI — Ethnic minority children in Tây Nguyên (Central Highlands) Province of Gia Lai have significantly improved their Vietnamese language skills thanks to a new project on expanding "friendly libraries" in local classes and schools. Setting up libraries in schools was one of the tasks to strengthen Vietnamese language for pre-school and primary school students in ethnic minority areas. Since it was launched five years ago, speaking, reading and writing skills of ethnic minority students in many districts improved. In the 2020-2021 school year, Gia Lai Province has 300 primary schools and more than 600 small-scale school branches over several remote mountainous areas with a total of 6,000 classes and 165,000 students, of which half were ethnic minority. These children suffer many difficulties and disadvantages, and have little opportunity to access advanced society, so their language skills are limited. And because they are used to speaking in their own languages, and rarely attend kindergarten classes before school, lessons are difficult to understand. Gia Lai’s education sector is upgrading facilities and teaching equipment in primary schools. Many schools set up their own libraries with a variety of books, comics and magazines to help students. Schools also organised after-school activities such as singing competitions, reading festivals, drawing contests and stationery making competitions. These activities were helpful and created excitement for ethnic students. Trần Quốc Tuấn Primary School in Chư Drăng Commune of Krông Pa District which has five branches and nearly 600 ethnic students has seen improvements in the classrooms. Đoàn Thị Thúy, school principal, said: “In order to make students more interested in going to class, the school was constantly creating a beautiful …

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Gathering money to free up bookcases Regularly at weekends, the small space of only 20 square metres at No.31/131 Tran Phu, Phuoc Vinh ward, Hue city is always busy. This free book space has attracted many book lovers. On three rows of wooden shelves are thousands of books of all kinds neatly classified in separate groups. Tuan says, in order to have the current number of books, he must accumulate them over the years. When he was a child, he was passionate about reading, from comic books to those about studying and learning. Later, when he learned about famous domestic and foreign authors and their works, Tuan actively collected and wished himself and other book lovers would have access to them. From that beginning, the young man from Quang Binh chose Hue as the place to set up a free book space called " Tia Sang ". Most of the books at “ Tia Sang ” have been purchased from Tuan's savings. In order to get a large number of new books, he contacted prestigious bookstores in the area, followed up by a e promotional programme to "hunt" and buy books. In addition, Tuan's friends and acquaintances, upon knowing about the meaningful model, also contributed and provided additional support. Thanks to that, the book space "Tia Sang" has a wide variety of books and is open every week. Although it is a free reading space, Tuan has fully equipped it with a lighting system and electric fan to best serve everyone. In addition to books and stories, he also displays chess tables and 3D puzzles to keep readers entertained. Coming to borrow books for the second time, Dang Van Gia Huy, a fifth grade student at Phuoc Vinh Primary School excitedly: “ I really like it. Before, at home, outside studying hours, I could only sleep. Now, with a free comic bookcase, my friends and I come here to borrow books and read stories more often”. Connecting people to read With the aim of spreading reading culture in today's life, young "boss" Phan Cong Tuans initially succeeded as …

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