“One great evening, big event, not only an artistic one”

With these words the President of Bulgaria, Mr. Zhelev began his cordial congratulation to the Bulgarian-Greek co-production of “Turandot”, which was shown in Sofia on 11 June 1995.

“For the Bulgarian audience this Bulgarian-Greek production of the opera “Turandot” means first the coming back on the stage of the Sofia Opera of the great Bulgarian soprano Ghena Dimitrova, with the role which was marking for her career /she has been called “Turandot of the century”/.

The emanation, the energy of Dimitrova would have been enough by itself in order to thrill the evening of the premiere, but the Bulgarian-Greek Turandot had also another reason to be a hot event. Together with Dimitrova came back after long absence from the Sofia stage one great Bulgarian artist, the conductor Metodi Matakiev. Together with him, Plamen Kartaloff invited the designer Ioanna Manoledaki, who after the success of the Bulgarian-Greek co-production “La belle Hélène” by Offenbach came back in Sofia with exactly this production of “Turandot”. In the rest of the roles the audience enjoyed Konstantin Yankov – Calàf, Tsvetelina Vasileva – Liù, Yulian Konstantinov – Timur and others.

Except everything, this was the first international co-production of “European Capital of Culture – Thessaloniki 1997”, which marked the first significant cultural achievement on the Balkans. The significance of this great event of such a life important meaning culminated into the magnificence of the performance. Everyone agreed that this Bulgarian-Greek Turandot will be the beginning of cooperation at several levels. This means that with art we present a contact between both countries, which is more effective that all kinds of diplomatic missions.

It is important to mark that exactly this staging of TURANDOT created in 1995, and already presented with great success in 2000 in Japan, (the first guest-performance of the Sofia Opera in the Country of the Rising Sun), was now revived at the request of the Japan Impresario Agency, which presented the Sofia Opera in Japan for the sixth time in autumn 2015.

In the spectacle on 15 January 2015 will take part: Bayasgalan Dashnyam, Kostadin Andreev, Tsvetana Bandalovska, Angel Hristov, Atanas Mladenov, Plamen Papazikov, Daniel Ostretsov, Miroslav Andreev, Nikolay Petrov. On 16 January the participants will be: Iordanka Derilova, Martin Iliev, Silvana Pravcheva, Svetozar Rangeliv, Atanas Mladenov, Plamen Papazikov, Daniel Ostretsov, Miroslav Andreev, Nikolay Petrov. Conductor of both spectacles will be Grigor Palikarov.