TIRANA, Sept. 12 – Tirana will soon have a reconstructed Opera House and a new public run art facility in two major investments that will cost Euro 12 million.
Fifty years after its construction under Albania’s communist regime, the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet, Albania’s solo performing arts institution of its kind, is set to be renovated under a €8.6 million government funded project.
“Since 1966, this institution, the most important in Albania’s performing arts, has known no serious intervention to bring it into decent standards for the art produced there, not only for the public who remained loyal to this theatre in good and bad times, but even in creating the necessary conditions for the professional life of artists who worked hard and produced unforgettable emotions,” Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro has said at a public heating with artists.
The 30-month reconstruction is scheduled to start in January 2017 and finish by June 2019 in a project that will make a thorough renovation that involves architecture, stage design, acoustic and air-conditioning systems.
While the National Theater will be under reconstruction, its artists will be performing in other stages in Tirana and outside the capital.
“We will move from this building to settle in a better building and that’s why we should make use of this transition period to be closer to the public,” Zana à‡ela, the theatre’s new director has said.
Tirana’s art life will also have a new stage by early 2018. A Euro 3.3 million project will renovate an abandoned former hydro-technical lab built under communism to transform it into the “New Stage” art center.
The new art center will host two theatres with a total capacity of 600 seats and a visual arts facility. The reconstruction project which has already kicked off is expected to finish by February 2018.
Prime Minister Edi Rama has described the new art facility “as a new stage for theatre artists in a space that for a quarter of a century had been abandoned and formerly served as a hydro-technical lab.”
The new facility will also serve as a temporary seat for the National Theatre which is expected to have a completely new building in a project which has sparked concern among some veteran actors.
