The famed Albanian soprano Ramona Tullumani is one of the artists we are going to ring in 2024 with, at the traditional New Year’s gala concert (29, 30 and 31 December, 2023) at the Sofia Opera, the tickets for which were sold out a month in advance. Ramona loves to perform in Sofia because she values the Bulgarian audiences, but also because she has Bulgarian roots. Her great-grandfather Georgi Lilov was an engineer, he worked with architect Lazar Parashkevanov on the construction of the Sofia Opera House in Vrabcha street. Radio Bulgaria talked to Ramona at the Bulgarian embassy in Tirana where she is a frequent guest.

“My grandmother is Bulgarian. And one day, on the stage in Sofia she saw a handsome baritone. And that was my grandfather - Ramiz Kovaçi, a famous opera singer in Albania, but also in Turkey where she lived and where she spent the last years of her life. They got married, my mother was born, and they came to live in Albania. Then I was born…”

That is how Ramona Tullumani’s story begins. The singer was born in Tirana on 5 July, 1985. As a child she played the piano, then she studied singing at the arts high school, and then graduated from the University of Arts.  

“Our family has always had a connection with Bulgaria,” Ramona says. “My grandmother really loved Bulgaria and she missed Sofia. She always spoke Bulgarian, she has told me fairytales, she has sung songs to me. Actually, that was how she herself learnt to talk and to sing children’s songs in Bulgarian.”

We ask her if she has a children’s song in Bulgarian that is her favourite.

“Yes, I do, “Little white bunny, playing all day long” (an extremely popular children’s song in Bulgaria – editorial note) … That is my favourite. I have sung it to my own son and to my daughter.”

Ramona says she owes her love of opera to her family.

“I was born in a house where everybody talked about opera all the time. So, I just fell in love with it. I had good teachers – my grandfather Ramiz and my father Edmond, who is also a very good and very famous opera singer. After the conservatory, I attended Raina Kavaivanska’s master class in Sofia, I also went to master classes in Rome, Verona, Modena and in Vienna. Then I started performing on the big stage – at the national opera in Tirana. A little while later I auditioned in Sofia. And now I am a soloist with both the opera in Tirana and the opera in Sofia. And I often joke, with the director of the Sofia Opera House Plamen Kartalov, that on the stage in Sofia I feel like Maria Callas. That is the kind of respect I feel coming from the people there.”

“The most important thing for any artist is to sing from the heart, and to work on their skills constantly,” says Ramona who has sung and continues to perform at some of the leading opera houses of Europe and America. “Being a good singer takes lots of hard work and perseverance,” she says, and goes on with memories of what Raina Kabaivanska’s master class in Sofia was like:

“I have great respect for Raina Kabaivanska. She would tell me I have a very wide range and advised me to take care of myself. She was very strict, very demanding… She would say to me – you have to be thinner, you are too plump, with that belly you can’t sing. And it is true – there was much more of me then than there is now…”

Ghena Dimitrova is the other Bulgarian soprano who has left a deep trail in the heart of Ramona Tullumani. “Magnificent,” is how Ramona describes her. We ask her how she maintains the Bulgarian language?

“With the help of my mother. We speak a lot in Bulgarian, she has translated many Bulgarian books. I often talk to my children in Bulgarian as well. I know that is not enough – but I never seem to have enough time. My daughter is still very little, she is only two, but my son knows many Bulgarian words. He understands Bulgarian and he can ask questions – how are you, what are you doing… He really loves coming to Sofia with me, he loves watching me rehearse at the opera. I wish I could bring my daughter too but the journey by car is too much for a little child – an 8-9 hours’ drive. If there was a Sofia-Tirana flight, that would be a different thing. But that idea is constantly being put off.”

At the end of our conversation, Ramona Tullumani extends an invitation to her appearances in Sofia:

“It will give me immense pleasure to welcome the New Year together, at the New Year’s gala concert at the Sofia Opera on 29, 30 and 32 December. So, do come. I love you! And listen to Radio Bulgaria! A Happy New Year to you all!”

By Krasimir Martinov, Kostandina Bello

Translated and posted by Milena Daynova

Photos courtesy of Ramona Tullumani and Krasimir Martinov

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXupiOC2eVQ

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJz-IiXEmtU

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhfLl_qYlFs