Mohammad-Taghi Kahnamouee (1919-1984) was born in Tehran, Iran. Having played in more than one hundred movies as a graduate of Acting High School, Kahnamouee’s activity as a writer was overshadowed.
His premier on stage dates back to 1943 with portable theater groups. His first appearance in a movie was in 1965 named Morad and Laleh and directed by Saber Rahbar (b. 1931). Kahnamouee has written two librettos both of which have been adopted to music by the renowned Iranian composer Hossein Dehlavi (b. 1928).
The couple’s first collaboration, Children’s Songs took place in the 70s. Having bought the musical notebook of children’s songs from Germany, Dehlavi asked Kahnamoue to compose children’s poetry based on that music. After this book was published in 1976, Hossein Dehlavi started writing an opera for children based on Kahnamouee’s libretto. This opera was completed in 1979. It was never performed due to the ban of women’s soloist’s singing though.
Mani and Mana opera has been also translated into German and English. Neither of these translations have been performed either. Mani and Mana’s libretto is the story of a little girl whose lamb is stolen by a wolf. The little girl manages to rescue the lamb by the help of jungle animals. This opera is written for soloists, adult, teenger and children’s choruses and Symphony Orchestra. Only the instrumental part of this opera has been recorded under the button of Alexander (Ali) Rahbari (b. 1946).
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