Sofia Opera Opens Club for Meetings, Project Presentations, Film Screenings

Dimitrina Solakova

Opera Club's opening at the Sofia Opera and Ballet, December 21, 2024 (BTA Photo/Nikola Uzunov)

Sofia,

21.12.2024 17:29

(BTA)

The Sofia Opera and Ballet Saturday opened its own club for meetings, talks about music, project presentations and film screenings. "This will be a place to get in touch with our art, portraits, books, exhibitions - everything that is related to music," Director Plamen Kartalov told the first guests of the club. The space is located in the underground part of the opera house.

He joked that the club could be called "Richard Wagner and Friends", as the composer's friends were his other famous colleagues, such as Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni and Carl Orff.

"Wagner has become an emblem of our theatre. Those who follow our international activities know that we have performed Wagner on six stages in Europe: Belarus, Slovenia, Germany, Russia, North Macedonia. There is a great interest in our performances. Now we have new invitations, again with Wagner, but this time to Italy, so we are not giving up this repertoire," said Kartalov. He announced that the next Wagner Festival opens on June 26 with the opera Tannhäuser. An extremely difficult title, especially for the tenor, this is, perhaps the most difficult role in the repertoire of opera literature, added Kartalov. "But we will manage, so we have contacts with artists from other theatres. I think we will defend this cause of ours - Richard Wagner in Bulgaria - with dignity," he added.

Gabriela Georgieva and Ventseslav Anastasov were the first performers in the new club. They presented part of the opera Lohengrin accompanied by Yolanta Smolyanova (piano). Before that a film about Wagner was screened.

/DS/