Italian, Albanian concert follows in emperor Adrian’s footsteps

TIRANA, Sept. 12 – Internationally renowned and Albanian arias will be performed this weekend at the southern ancient Roman archeological park of Hadrianapois, where an Albanian-Italian team has been carrying excavations for the past 7 years.
“In the footsteps of Adrian” musical evening will bring on stage renowned operas staged as Albanian-Italian coproduction such as Bohem, Carmen, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Turandot as well as Albania opera parts Lule Bore, and Per ty Atdhe. Some parts by Ismail Kadare’s “Chronicle in Stone” and Dantja i Pashmangshem (Inevitable Dante) will be publicly read as homage to Gjirokastra and Italy’s most famous poet.
The event scheduled for Sept. 15 at 17.00 is directed by Italy’s Francesco Micheli. It will bring on stage Italian soprano Aurora Tirotta and Albanian baritone Gezim Myshketa who will be accompanied by the string quartet of the Albanian Radio Television, RTSH.
“In the footsteps of Adrian 2012″ will return music and dances on the magical stage of the theatre of the ancient town of Hadrianapolis where the results of the latest excavations and the restoration of the theatre will be displayed,” says the Italian Institute of Culture in a statement.
“Our duty as archaeologists cannot be complete only with research and publications with a scientific character. A complex and advanced society like ours in which the protection of cultural heritage is interconnected with other demands, obliges us and other scholars to highlight values as key goals. Only through the spread of knowledge and the display of different models of the administration of resources and territory we can think of modern economic and cultural development without which our research would lose its meaning,” says Italian archaeologist Roberto Perna, the leader of the Italian-Albanian excavation team at the Hadrianapolis park.
Back in 2010, the Arena Sferisterio Association of Macerata staged a ballet dedicated to Emperor Adrian and is now back with a more grand event held as part of the Albania’s 100th anniversary of independence.
Few months ago, the Albanian-Italian team resumed excavations in the ancient Roman Hadrianapolis park, southern Albania for another two years. The resumption of works after their suspension in late 2011 will make possible the discovery and restoration of most of the park, archeologists say.
“We started work here in 2007 together with Albanian colleagues. At that time Hadrianopolis was quite unknown and our final goal was to turn it into an archeological park with all the restored items and accessible to tourists,” says Professor Roberto Perna of Italy’s University of Macerata, a co-director of the expedition.
Last year, a photo exhibition called “Hadrianapolis, a Roman town in ancient Epirus” was featured at the Italian Institute of Culture. The exhibition featured sixty colored and black and white photos illustrating archeological excavations Italian experts have been carrying out in cooperation with Albanian colleagues in the Hadrinapolis park.
Previous expeditions in the site managed to discover important remains such as the Roman baths, monumental tombs and an ancient church, all of which are expected to give Hadrianapolis the national park status and attract more visitors.
Located in Drino valley in Gjirokastra region by a village bearing the same name, Roman Hadrianopolis dates back to the second century A.D. The theatre was excavated in 1984 and has a capacity of 4,000 seats in 27 steps.
The settlement, Hellenistic in origin, was re-founded under Emperor Hadrian, who gave it its name. The excavated remains include public buildings such as a theatre and Roman baths, large parts of the urban settlement and an extensive necropolis.