TIRANA, Oct. 21 – The Marie Kraja opera festival will mark its fifteenth edition with more than a dozen of singers from all over the world.
Fourteen emerging opera singers have been selected to participate in this 15th edition of the only international opera festival in Albania scheduled to be held on Oct. 30 and 31.
Albania will be represented in the festival by baritone Armando Likaj and soprano Enkeleda Kamani.
Zana à‡ela, the festival’s founder, describes the festival as an important platform for the promotion of young opera singers and a starting point in their international careers.
“For 15 years, the International Festival of Operatic Singers ‘Marie Kraja’ has indicated that it represents not only a culmination in the Albanian cultural life, but is also considered an institution which is able to speak beyond the Albanian borders in a way that even a political program cannot do,” says à‡ela, the festival’s producer and host.
The festival is named after Marie Kraja, one of Albania’s most famous opera singers. The late Austria-educated Albania soprano gave concerts and recitals throughout Europe before returning after World War II to Albania, where she taught singing and sang at the Opera House in Tirana. She was the lead performer in the first opera by an Albanian composer, Mrika, staged in 1959.
Established in 1999 soon after Marie Kraja passed away at the age of 88, the festival was initially held as a national competition, before becoming Albania’s only internationally renowned operatic festival in the next few editions.
The careers of several young performers including Albanian tenor Josif Gjipali, soprano Evis Mula, Belgium’s Micheal Fisch and Turkey’s Perihan Diana Nayir have kicked off at the Marie Kraja festival.
In 2009, young Albanian soprano Evis Mula managed to sign a two-year contract with La Scala, Milan’s world famous Opera House, after winning the Marie Kraja festival.
The festival’s jury is composed of some of the most prestigious directors of European and American opera houses.
