Fifteen years after the Sofia Opera House’s first guest appearance in Japan, the company is now going back to the Land of the Rising Sun. The Sofia Opera has lined up two productions – Prince Igor on 5 June and Turandot two days later – featuring the soloists who are to take part in the Japanese tour scheduled for October. With Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor, stage director Academician Plamen Kartalov offers a dramatic rendition renouncing war and ending in peace and love among the protagonists.

On 7 June the Sofia Opera House marks a double jubilee with the production of Turandot by Giacomo Puccini. It is 40 years since Ghena Dimitrova’s debut as Turandot and 20 years since the premiere of Plamen Kartalov’s production in which he brought back to the Sofia Opera stage the superb dramatic soprano Ghena Dimitrova and conductor Metodi Matakiev.

The jubilee matinee on 7 June will feature excerpts from the outstanding productions starring Ghena Dimitrova as Turandot in Sofia, Milan and Verona. There will be reminiscences from the musicians’ work with the celebrated performer of Turandot, who passed away in 2005.

The opera will be conducted by Grigor Palikarov. This time we shall see Gabriela Georgieva, whose mentor was Ghena Dimirova, as the cruel Chinese princess, Silvana Pruvcheva as Liù and tenor Kostadin Andreev, who has performed together with the renowned dramatic soprano, as Calaf.

“The first time I sang in Turandot with Ghena Dimitgrova was in Italy,” Kostadin Andreev remembers. “That was the first time we met. I had wanted to make her acquaintance for a long time and one day she turned up at the hotel where I was staying. I was amazed to see her and that was how our friendship began. From then on we worked together when she guest preformed with the Sofia Opera House and in Japan. It is something I shall never forget, to my mind she is the greatest Turandot ever, the best singer ever to have performed the part. Singing alongside her in Puccini’s grand opera, produced by Academician Kartalov is one of the top achievements of my career.”

“Through the years I have taken part in different productions of Turandot, but the overwhelming power Plamen Kartalov’s rendition unleashes invariably transports the spirit into the empyrean,” the singer adds.

The directorial rendition of the opera is a challenge to the acting and singing potential of the entire cast. Puccini was inspired for his opera by Carlo Gozzi’s play Turandot which he watched in Berlin in 1919. The production Plamen Kartalov offers is targeted at a broader audience. Here is more from Kostadin Andreev:

“The production traces the transition from youth to maturity. Calaf is seen as a young man seeking his place in the world. His falling in love with Turandot marks his coming to maturity. In turn, the power of his feelings turns the princess from a block of ice into a human being.”

English version Milena Daynova