The Sofia Opera Wagner festival is among the most recognizable opera events in Eastern Europe and a rare example of how a cultural initiative can gradually turn into an international business card of an entire city.
Organized by the Sofia Opera and Ballet, the festival is irrevocably connected to its long-standing director Plamen Kartaloff: the director who turned Wagner into one of the emblems of Bulgarian opera theater.
Today, the project can no longer be described as just a festival. It’s a complete Wagner line, part of the Sofia Opera repertoire, which has been built upon for more than a decade. Nine titles have already been set, with the tenth one: “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, on the way.
2027 repertoire:
28th, 30th of May and 3rd of July: premiere of “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, an 1889 La Scala version of the piece, created by Giacomo Puccini.
26th of June – 1st of July: “Der Ring des Nibelungen”; 26th of June: “Das Rheingold”; 27th of June: “Die Walküre”; 29th of June: “Siegfried”; 1st of July: “Götterdämmerung”.
The story:
Kartaloff decided to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s birth in 2013 in the most ambitious way possible: by setting the entire “Der Ring des Nibelungen” tetralogy. The project was designed not as a one-off production but as a four years long process:
2010: “Das Rheingold”
2011: “Die Walküre”
2012: “Siegfried”
2013: “Götterdämmerung”.
The first Sofia Opera Wagner festival took place from the 22nd till the 29th of June, 2013.
After “Der Ring des Nibelungen”, the Sofia Opera gradually expanded its Wagner repertoire. More pieces were added after “Der Ring”:
“Tristan und Isolde” – 26.02.2015
“Parsifal” – 4.07.2017
“Der fliegende Holländer” – 8.07.2022
The next big Richard Wagner anniversary in 2023 was celebrated with a brand-new production of the “Der Ring des Nibelungen” tetralogy as well as with a grand Wagner festival from the 8th till the 30th of July where all seven titles in the opera’s repertoire were presented.
Two more Wagner works were added after:
“Lohengrin” – 13.06.2024
“Tannhäuser” – 26.06.2025
And so, the current Sofia Opera Wagner repertoire includes a total of nine titles.
A great new step forward lies ahead: “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, one of Wagner’s largest works. Preparation requires an enormous singer ensemble, a complex orchestral score and significant stage resources. This is precisely why the performance is planned as a long-term project.
However, this production has one unusual peculiarity.
The Sofia Opera will turn to the historic Italian version of “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” created by the young Giacomo Puccini for the piece’s premiere at La Scala in 1889.
At the end of the 19th century, publisher Ricordi attained the rights to perform Wagner in Italy. For the first production of “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” at La Scala, he tasks the young Puccini with preparing the Italian edition of the work. Puccini made the necessary cuts and adaptions including reworks of some arias. The orchestration was entrusted to Franco Faccio who has roots in the Bayreuth opera tradition.
The premiere in Milano took place on the 26th of December, 1889: a historic moment with which Wagner permanently became a part of the La Scala repertoire.
And so, the upcoming Sofia Opera production will build a bridge of sorts between three cultural capitals and three different eras: Wagner’s Bayreuth, Puccini’s Milano and contemporary Sofia.
It is exactly this detail that gives the tenth Wagner work a special conceptual value: it’s not just yet another Wagner opera performed in Sofia but also a return to a specific chapter of the European musical heritage history.
THE AUDIENCE:
With time, the Wagner festival began attracting audience outside of Bulgaria.
Among our international visitors are Wagner fans from Germany, Austria, Italy, the UK, Iceland, Australia, China and the USA.
Here, one of the most important signs of the festival turning into a brand appeared: people began travelling to Sofia just to see this Wagner project.
This is, in essence, different than the traditional festival audience. During a regular cultural event, the viewer attends a performance in his hometown. For a special festival, he may choose to travel to a different city, just for the vent. Sofia has gradually entered this category.
Parallel to this, the Sofia Opera ahs been presenting its Wagner performances outside Bulgaria. The tours in Germany, Russia, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Northern Macedonia contributed to the theater’s international reputation of having a consistent Wagner repertoire.
And so, a two-way model was formed: international audiences come to Sofia and the Sofia Opera brings its Wagner performances abroad.
A Wagner repertoire cannot be built throughout a single season. Experience is needed: singer, conductor, orchestral, director’s and technical. Each following production is based on the knowledge acquired from the previous one, thus creating not just a performance but an entire school.
From “Der Ring des Nibelungen” to “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, this isn’t just a Wagner story but one of how an opera built a school; how a school built a repertoire; how the repertoire built an audience and the audience: an international reputation.
