On 12 and on 14 March, the Sofia Opera will present the opera “Elektra” by Richard Strauss. On 26 November was the premiere of the famous opera, which was performed for the first time in Bulgaria, in the situation of pandemic. The idea for the realization of the production is Plamen Kartaloff’s. This way the Sofia Opera joined the most prestigious opera theatres in the world, which have in their repertoire Richard Strauss’ modernistic work. 

“Elektra” is the next exceptionally complicated artistic task in a raw, before which was standing the company of the first opera theatre in Bulgaria. After the tetralogy “Der Ring des Nibelungen”, “Tristan und Isolde” and “Parsifal” by Richard Wagner, the including of “Elektra” in the untraditional repertoire programme demonstrates the enormous artistic possibilities of the Sofia Opera. In the soloistic staff there are just and only Bulgarian singers. Richard Strauss’ vocal style is untypical and this provokes a new, different appearance of the soloists and the chorus. The scores are full of high orchestral difficulties, and Plamen Kartaloff’s director’s concept, as always, is moulding the artistic characters and placing them in new dimensions of the creative search.

The premiere of “Elektra” appeared during a pandemic and a series of tests for the spirit. But this is also the proof for the courage of the Sofia Opera exactly in this moment to present before its loyal audience one conquering spectacle, which outlines a clear vision of the theatre’s development in the near future.

In the lead roles we shall see Lilia Kehayova and Diana Guglina as Elektra, Gergana Rusekova, Mariana Zvetkova and Yordanka Milkova – in the role of Klytaemnestra, Radostina Nikolaeva and Tsvetana Bandalovska as Chrysothemis, Daniel Ostretsov and Emil Pavlov as Aegisth, Veselin Mihaylov and Atanas Mladenov – in the character of Orest.