Puccini’s Tosca opens Opera House season

TIRANA, Jan. 9 – Puccini’s Tosca, an opera in three acts containing some of the best-known lyrical arias by the renowned early 20th century Italian composer will open the new season at the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet after its premiere in early 2013. Directed by Albania’s Nikolin Gurakuqi, the opera will bring on stage Eva Golemi and Marjana Leka, two of Albania’s best sopranos, in three performances scheduled for January 14, 21 and 24.
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.
Back in December 2011 Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot premiered at the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Tirana. Directed by Nicola Zorzi, and under the baton of Edmond Doko, the opera came as an Italian-Albanian cooperation. 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.