site.btaSofia Opera and Ballet to Open New Season with Giacomo Puccini's "Turandot"

The Sofia National Opera and Ballet will open its new season on September 27 and 29 with gala performances of Turandot by Giacomo Puccini, dedicated to the year of the great Italian Maestro. Opening the season will be world-famous conductor Daniel Oren, Anna Pirozzi, the Premio Puccini winner and Jorge de Leon, awarded as the best opera performer in Spain. They will arrive in Bulgaria for the first time, at the invitation of Sofia Opera and Ballet Director Plamen Kartaloff.

Kartaloff and Oren worked together on the Aida and La Boheme opera productions in Salerno in 2023 and 2024.

Oren said that he was very pleased to receive the invitation from the Sofia Opera and Ballet Director, with whom he has already collaborated. “I appreciate his respect for opera and music in general. He is always ready to collaborate, to give the best possible performance to the audience, both musically and artistically", Oren said. He also noted that he is excited to make his debut at the Sofia Opera in September and to return in November, as well as to meet the orchestra and chorus in Turandot by Giacomo Puccini and Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi.

Daniel Oren was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. He served as Music Director at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, later becoming Senior Conductor, Music Director of the Teatro Dell'Opera in Rome, the Giuseppe Verdi Theatre in Trieste, the Opera Carlo Felice in Genoa and the San Carlo Theatre in Naples.

Oren currently serves as Artistic Director of the Teatro Municipale Giuseppe Verdi in Salerno. In 2019, he was appointed Music Director of the Arena di Verona Opera festival. At the famous festival Maestro Oren conducted La Boheme and Tosca by Giacomo Puccini, Aida by Giuseppe Verdi and Carmen by Georges Bizet.

After the two performances of Turandot in September, Oren will return to the Sofia Opera to conduct the Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi on November 15 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its first performance. Specially invited are soprano Mariangela Sicilia, mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk, tenor Fabio Sartori and bass Dmitry Ulyanov.   

Anna Pirozzi has established herself as the leading Italian dramatic soprano over the last decade. Shortly after making her debut in 2012 at the Teatro Regio in Turin as Amelia Un ballo in Maschera, prompting Italian media to write “the greatest dramatic soprano of coloratura from 1945 to today", she appeared on the greatest stages in the world, including Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Opéra de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, Arena di Verona, among others.

In 2024, Pirozzi was the winner of the 55th Premio Puccini. She was nominated among women in Opera Singer category.

Tenor Jorge de Leon hails from the Canary Islands. A winner of the Gayarre prize and runner-up in the Aragall competition, he ranks among the finest present-day Spanish singers, thanks primarily to his easy high register and his unerring technique.  He has taken leading roles, such as Radamès (Aida), Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana) and Mario Cavaradossi (Tosca), at time-honoured operatic venues in New York, Milan, Vienna, Berlin and elsewhere. At the Liceu he has already starred in five operas, the most recent being Andrea Chénier and Madama Butterfly.

In 2024, the Spanish Academy of Performing Arts awarded him the Best Opera Performer prize among men.