BUTRINTI, July 23 – Albania’s international theatre festival, Butrinti 2000, closed on Monday after a week of performances that brought theatre companies from throughout the Balkans to the 2,500-year-old Roman amphitheatre.
The eighth festival, held annually in Butrinti near the southernmost town of Saranda, climaxed with the Barber of Seville, performed by the Albanian National Theatre and directed by France’s Eric Vigner.
Other participants this year included the Atelier 31 company from Albania, the Nikolai Binev youth theatre of Sofia, the Belgrade Drama Theatre, the Collisions Company of England, the National Theatre of Northern Greece and the Drama Theatre of Skopje, Macedonia. Performances ranged from classical works like Medea, to Twelfth Night and The Small Theatre of Death.
Alfred Bualoti, head of the festival, said that, “Eight editions are a very valuable experience for the cooperation with prestigious partners in the Mediterranean theater and wider and also for increasing the quality of this event, which serves not only as recognition and an exchange of theatre values, but also of the cultural tourism.”
Albania has declared this year as belonging to cultural tourism. Butrinti is considered one the most significant Roman archeological sites in the Mediterranean. Largely unknown to the outside world before the fall of the Stalinist regime of Albania’s former dictator, Enver Hoxha, the site now receives tens of thousands of visitors every year
