Tirana Times
TIRANA, April 13 – Jules Massenet’s Werther, one of the most popular operas in France, will come as premiere at the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet. The famous opera will bring on the Opera House’s stage Albanian internationally renowned tenor Saimir Pirgu and mezzo-soprano Vikena Kamenica. Both soloists are already rehearsing in Tirana for the opera’s premiere scheduled for April 20, 22, 24 and 26.
Saimir Pirgu returns to Tirana after the successful stage of a starring role in the Magic Flute opera in Italy’s La Scala. Last year, he appeared at the Ravinia Festival in United States as Ferrando in a concert performance of Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” under the baton of James Conlon on August 5th with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by ʤouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Although Massenet wrote and completed his opera in 1887, it did not receive any performance until it premiered at the Imperial Theatre Hofoper in Vienna on February 16, 1892, in a German version translated by Max Kalbeck. It had a great success. The French-language premiere followed in Geneva on December 27, 1892, and the first performance in France was at the Op곡-Comique, Paris on January 16, 1893.
The National Theatre of Opera and Ballet has scheduled to stage other premieres such as Verdi’s Don Carlos, Puccini’s Turandot and parts by Stravinsky during this year. The big premieres the Opera House will stage this year will also be followed by Albanian and foreign instrumentalists such as a concert with parts from Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and another concert by Albanian born, US based baritone Kreshnik Zhabjaku.
This year’s programme will also bring concerts dedicated to the 100th birth anniversary of late Albanian soprano Marie Kraja and commemorate the 25th anniversary of the debut of Albanian internationally renowned soprano, Inva Mula.
