Agim Hushi ends singing career home with Puccini’s Tosca

TIRANA, Oct. 16 – Internationally renowned Albanian-Australian tenor Agim Hushi is making his last appearance at the Opera House with the lead role of Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca to close his singing career.
“In a while I will be on stage to sing in my last premiere! Happy to be performing my favourite role with which I embarked on a long and lucky career. I feel both sad and happy,” wrote Hushi on his Facebook profile just before the opera premiere.
“I am quitting, leaving behind a Theatre full of problems but virtuous, with an excellent orchestra and chorus, and excellent artists shining on international stages, as well as plenty of tenors who make me proud with their voices and art,” Hushi had earlier written.
Hushi, 47, who has had a successful international career since the early 1990s, returned to the Opera House in Tirana after seven years with the opening performance of Tosca on Oct. 15.
Eva Golemi, Irini Nikolla and Shpresa Beka are the other soloists of the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet performing in the three-act opera directed by Albania’s Nikolin Gurakuqi also scheduled to stage on October 17 and 19.
Puccini’s Tosca, an opera in three acts containing some of the best-known lyrical arias by the renowned early 20th century Italian composer opened the new season at the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet in January 2014 after its premiere in early 2013.
An opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, Tosca premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples’s control of Rome threatened by Napoleon’s invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, yet also includes some of Puccini’s best-known lyrical arias, and has inspired memorable performances from many of opera’s leading singers.
Musically, Tosca is structured as a through-composed work, with arias, recitative, choruses and other elements musically woven into a seamless whole. The dramatic force of Tosca and its characters continues to fascinate both performers and audiences, and the work remains one of the most frequently performed operas.
The National Theatre of Opera and Ballet, which in 2013 marked its 60th anniversary is the largest theatre in Albania and is home to an opera and ballet ensemble. The theatre was founded in 1953 and is a repertory theatre, which also regularly offers premi鳥s of operas by Albanian composers.
Hushi’s career
Born in the town of Kavaja, central Albania, Hushi is a world-renowned Albanian spinto tenor of Australian citizenship. After his university studies for literature and psychology in Tirana, he was discovered as a musical talent with an extraordinary tenor voice. He pursued his studies at the Albanian Academy of Arts in Tirana from which he graduated with excellent results in 1991.
From 1991-1992 he was principal tenor with the Albanian State Opera, where he performed the main tenor roles in Tosca, Cavalleria Rusticana and Il Trovatore. From 1992-1995 Agim Hushi continued his postgraduate studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest where, in parallel with vocal studies, he specialized in pedagogy of singing.
In 1995 he was appointed principal tenor at the Hungarian State Opera where he performed many major roles ranging in operas including Manon Lescout, Turandot, Il Tabarro, Il Lombardi and Purgacov.
From 1997, Agim Hushi pursued his career in Australia where he was invited to sing first, the role of Des Grieux in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, for the South Australian State Opera in Adelaide under the baton of maestro Richard Bonynge who said: “In my entire experience working with Agim Hushi has been a wonderful discovery. Agim Hushi and Laura Niculescu are the best cast in the world today”.
Based on such great success he was invited and contracted for the same opera, to sing for Opera Australia. His Sydney Opera House debut was highly acclaimed and critics compared him to the legendary tenor Beniamino Gigli.
Hushi continued to sing around Asia, New Zealand and USA. In 1999 with an Australian government grant he went for a belcanto experience in Milan with Franco Corelli, who wrote for him: “Agim Hushi’s voice is strong and beautiful and he deserve an International career”.
Hushi has sung in Australia, New Zealand, Kina, USA, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Dubai, Hungary, Germany, Russia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, Spain, UK, Switzerland, Albania and Austria.
His best roles are Cavaradosi, Calaf, Des Grieux, Radames, Manrico, Luigi, Canio and Turiddu.
In 2010 Agim Hushi recorded with Albanian soprano Inva Mula for EMI her new CD, Il Bel Sogno with operatic arias supported by Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. In October 2012 Agim Hushi recorded his first solo album Amore Grande with the most famous tenor songs under the baton of A. Pavlic and New Europe Symphonic Orchestra. This CD was regarded from Deutche Gramaphone and critics as one of the best CD since Di Stefanos best days in all tenors recordings.
Hushi is currently the Head of the Opera Department at the Vienna Conservatorium and regarded as one of the foremost singing teachers in Europe. He was the founder of Belcanto School of Singing in Adelaide, Australia. Also he was teaching while continuing his singing at Singapore’s National University. Agim Hushi has given master classes around the world in countries like China, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, Denmark and in many notable vocal institutions in European countries such as Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Ecole Normal in Paris.