We have a new Festival Day. This Year`s 25th of October is declared as „World Opera Day“.

We do not celebrate the Birth- or Death of a composer with a concert or opera performance as a hommage to this artist, although we had also reason for such an event, as today Bizet and also Strauß (Johann, not Richard) were born, and we are lucky to have the joy to know their great works „Carmen“ and „The Bat“ or „Die Fledermaus“. Or does anybody of you not know at least one or two arias or the Ouvertures, most played in all opera concerts, of these great works?

No, today we celebrate the opera houses and their artists for the work that they do for the society. And this is a lot, especially in Sofia, I think.

When I first came to Sofia I took part in presenting for the first time Wagner`s „Ring“ to an international public, and as far as I know the first Ring on the Balkan. Director Kartaloff `s decision to do this great work in german language with an ensemble that mostly did not speak german, was quite risky. But the great success gave him right. After this production followed Tristan and Parsifal an soon will come Elektra by Richard Strauss. So the great german, most difficult repertoire found a new home in Sofia and is regularly played, for which I show great respect.

Besides the italian, russian, french repertoire in opera and ballett, Sofia cares also for their bulgarian opera composers. Thanks and respect
also for this decision.

But this is not all, what is remarkable in this house of music. On my first saturday here I saw many mothers with little children in front of the entrance. To find out, what they wanted in opera, I followed them some stairs up..... And found myself in a baby concert. On the way down to my new office, I heard noise from the stage. And I saw that just in this moment a children opera (not for babies, but for older children) was going to start.

Thus the opera really serves all generations of our society. May the children learn to hear and to feel, what music means and how music speaks to them and may the older ones never forget, what it is about. Two famous painters expressed it like this:

Wassily Kandinsky:
Musical sound has direct access to the soul. It finds there an echo, for man hath music in himself.“

Vincent van Gogh:
Mit einem Bild möchte ich etwas Tröstliches sagen, so wie Musik tröstlich ist.

What we do every night comes from our hearts, may it go directly to the hearts of our listeners and spectators.

In this sense I wish the Sofia Opera on this „World Day of Opera“ ongoing success with their work and recognition by the whole society.

Erich Wächter