The Sofia Opera and Ballet dedicated a performance of the opera “Adriana Lecouvreur” by Cilea to the opera diva Raina Kabaivanska who just turned ninety-years old on the 15th of December.
A small surprise awaited the audience before the beginning of the performance: a video of Raina Kabaivanska performing Hana Glavari’s aria from the operetta “The Merry Widow” by Lechar: a legendary Rome opera production created especially for our remarkable actress and singer.
Acad. Plamen Kartaloff, director of the Sofia Opera, congratulated the great prima donna Raina Kabaivanska who is a permanent member of the Sofia Opera for her birthday from the name of all creative and technical teams.
Kabaivanska herself thanked the audience through a video address recorded in advance.
“Dear audience, you give us strength. We sing for you. The stage serves you and you give us life. This is a deep connection, a great love which transcends from the theater to the stage and then: to the audience. This is our strength, this impact of two souls: one lives one stage and the other, in the theater. We are one whole and we all drink from the same source, the fountain of art and music. This gives life beauty and moments which are outside of reality: we travel to other centuries with different circumstances and become different people. There are always noble scene, noble passions and great love: the love which connects all us artists to you, the audience.”
Bulgarian president Rumen Radev and his wife Desislava Radeva also sent a special congratulatory speech.
On the 17th and 19th of January, 2025, “Adriana Lecouvreur” will be performed, with the participation of scholarship winners of Raina Kabaivanska’s masterclasses: singers with an international career such as Vitoria Yeo, Sofia Soloviy, Veronica Simeoni, Giuseppe Infantino and He Kang.