“On the wings of music,” tribute paid to Marije Kraja

TIRANA, Oct. 20 – “On the wings of music” was the concert staged at the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet paying tribute to late Albanian soprano Marije Kraja on her 100th birth anniversary. Some of the best soloists of the Opera House including soprano Mariana Leka Eva Golemi performed a gala concert conducted by maestro Zhani Ciko.
The concert was preceded by a documentary on the life of the late soprano, produced by public broadcaster TVSH, also featuring Kraja in an interview she gave in 1979.
“The concert was a tribute paid to Kraja based on the repertoire she has on the Albanian opera stage. This concert includes the tradition and the history of the Albanian music,” said Zhani Ciko, the director of the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet.
Known as a performer in the first Albanian opera Mrika staged in the late 1950s, Marije Kraja staged a successful career representing the Albanian lyric art in European countries and Asia.
She was a singer of the Independence period and “People’s Artist”. Her activity includes all genders cultivated vocal music, from chamber music (romance songs), to scenic.
Born in Zara (Dalmatia) in 1911, she was educated in Austria. She concluded the high school studies in the musical school of Vienna, and graduated from the University of Graz, Austria. When she returned to Albania she worked as a teacher in “Donika Katrioti” high school in the city of Shkoder and afterwards she taught in the female Institute in Tirane and carried out a rich concert activity with a repertoire even in folk music. She died in 1999 at the age of 88.