“Throughout all these years, we haven’t stopped working on Wagner’s works even for a second”, conductor Velizar Genchev said
The entire “Der Ring des Nibelungen” cycle and two additional pieces will turn Sofia into an international Wagner capital this summer.
The Sofia Opera and Ballet will perform six of the composer’s operas, part of the yearly Wagner festival. This year, the event will take place from the 26th of May till the 14th of June.
“This is a challenge a single human life isn’t enough to accomplish. We started working on the first project in 2009, in 2013 we performed the cycle in its entirety for the first time and now we’re going to perform “Der Ring des Nibelungen” for the 14th time”. We also set three other operas: “The Flying Dutchman”, “Parsifal” and “Tristan und Isolde”. During this festival, we’re going to present nine of Wagner’s works, three of them through streaming”, conductor Velizar Genchev shared at the “Bulgaria sutrin” studio.
The public “thirsts” for the new Wagner pieces as well as for those which are performed less often.
“Throughout all these years, we haven’t stopped working on Wagner’s works even for a second and we’re going in ever deeper. We’re swimming in dangerous waters now but we’ve won international praise; less than two months ago, the assembly of the Opera Europa organization was held which all opera theaters are a part of. There, during a presentation of several different festivals, ours was presented as well; our colleagues were strongly impressed that a country completely unrelated to Wagner has become a center of his work”, Genchev added for Bulgaria ON AIR.
He also shared that the festival enjoys increased interest from Western Europe, with tourists and entire groups of visitors arriving.
“We’ve toured at many prestigious stages; we toured with the entire cycle in Moscow in 2018. We also toured in Italy”, the conductor commented.