First Albanian opera staged in Japan

TIRANA, Feb. 6 – Mrika, Albania’s first large scale opera of the late 1950s, has been staged in Japan, opening the new season of Japan’s Junior Orchestra. Conductor Xhovani Luci and his wife, soprano Renato Luci, performed for the Japanese public the Mrika and Margjelo operas, receiving critical acclaim.
The stage of Albanian opera in Japan comes one year after a week of Japanese cultural days was marked in Tirana.
A concert with traditional Japanese instrumentalists was held in Tirana in mid-February 2011 as part of the first Japanese cultural week in Albania. The concert brought on the state of the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Tirana the Wariki band composed of two young Japanese traditional folk entertainers. Several recent successful Japanese movies were also screened at the Black Box hall of the Academy of Arts as a closing event.
The Japanese Cultural Week was organized by the Japanese embassy in Italy which also covers Albania.