Sofia Opera enters its 135th season with an ambitious programme

The Wagner Festival of the Sofia Opera has been nominated for the International Opera Awards, known as the “Opera Oscars”, the director of Bulgaria’s national opera house, Academician Plamen Kartaloff, announced at a press conference on Friday, 25 September. The awards will be presented on 21 November at the Theater an der Wien, one of Austria’s most beautiful and historic theatres.

Sofia Opera’s Wagner Festival is only the second Eastern European festival to be nominated in this category. The other was the festival dedicated to Bedřich Smetana in Ostrava, Czechia, in 2024.

There are six contenders for this year’s award. Among them is the renowned Bregenz Festival (Bregenzer Festspiele), held every July and August on the shores of Lake Constance and a multiple winner of an Opera Oscar. Founded in 1946, the festival is best known for its spectacular open-air opera productions staged on the world’s largest floating stage.

Also in the running is one of the world’s leading Baroque music festivals – the Monteverdi Festival in Cremona, the birthplace of composer Claudio Monteverdi, regarded as one of the creators of opera.

The first Wagner Festival of the Sofia Opera took place from 22 to 29 June 2013, with a production of the tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung. In the years that followed, Bulgaria’s national opera house added Tristan and Isolde, Parsifal, The Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin and Tannhäuser to the four operas of the Ring.

On 28 May 2027, Bulgaria will see the premiere of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – the last opera in the so-called Bayreuth canon, the ten mature Wagner works performed at the legendary Bayreuth Festival, founded by Richard Wagner himself.

The press conference ahead of Sofia Opera’s new artistic season also introduced world-renowned Austrian bass Kurt Rydl – Kammersänger and honorary member of the Vienna State Opera – who will work with Sofia Opera’s soloists on the new Wagner production. Plamen Kartaloff, who will direct Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, revealed an intriguing detail about the version of the opera to be staged in Bulgaria.

“This is not the version of Richard Wagner’s work that is performed around the world, but an adaptation made for La Scala in Milan in 1889. Why do I emphasise this? At the young age of 31, after an unsuccessful first opera, Giulio Ricordi sent a future great talent of Italian bel canto to Bayreuth to see Die Meistersinger and prepare an adaptation – a shorter one that would be more manageable for Italian audiences. Giulio Ricordi bought the rights to Wagner and commissioned this version exclusively for La Scala. On 18 August [1889], this young future genius wrote to a friend that he was leaving for Bayreuth. Incredibly, the premiere took place only a short time later, on 26 December 1889. That composer was Giacomo Puccini.”

Plamen Kartaloff stressed that Puccini’s version has not been performed anywhere since 1889. After La Scala, the opera, shortened by around an hour and a half, will now be presented at the Sofia Opera in 2027.

The new season has more treats in store for music lovers. It officially opens on 1 October with Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in a concert performance conducted by renowned Israeli maestro Daniel Oren.

Handel’s Agrippina premieres on 27 November – another first for Bulgaria. The production is a collaboration with the Handel Festival in Halle (Händel-Festspiele) and will be conducted by German maestro Constantin Trinks, a favourite with Bulgarian audiences.

Gaetano Donizetti’s La fille du régiment, an opera little known in Bulgaria, will be presented at the end of March 2027 in an authorised revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s historic Palermo production, with its remarkable set designs. The revival will be directed by Italy’s Marco Gandini, who staged Verdi’s Falstaff at the Sofia Opera last year.

The demanding role of Tonio, which includes the famous aria with no fewer than nine high Cs, will be sung by Venezuelan-born tenor Reinaldo Droz, one of the most successful students of Raina Kabaivanska.

Marta Petkova, director of the National Ballet, also presented the programme for the new season. It begins with a gala performance in Stara Zagora, followed by the official opening on 8, 10 and 11 October with Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. After a strong summer season, the company is already hard at work rehearsing for its upcoming performances:

“We started back in mid-September, and I can say that the dancers returned to the studios full of energy and motivation. We began rehearsing from the very first day, as we have a ballet gala coming up in Stara Zagora, which will also be our company’s first engagement of the season.”

And for Marta Petkova’s many admirers, she will herself dance Juliet on 11 October.

The company’s next challenge is the premiere of Three Faces, scheduled for 4 March 2027. Its three “faces” are three great choreographers of the 20th and 21st centuries – George Balanchine, Jiří Kylián and Garrett Smith.

Petkova noted that Jiří Kylián’s work has never before been presented in Bulgaria. The production will also celebrate the 80th birthday of the man she described as “the greatest living choreographer today”.

Editor: Elena Karkalanova