As part of the "Bucharest Opera Festival - All Puccini Edition", the Brasov Opera proposes on Friday, June 14th, the triptych composed of "Mantaua", "Sora Angelica" and "Gianni Schicchi". On this occasion Mihai Irimia, the artistic director of the Brașov Opera, spoke to our colleague Ioana Țintea.

Mr. Mihai Irimia, the Opera of Brașov is invited to present a performance at the Bucharest Opera Festival - All Puccini Edition. How did you perceive the invitation to participate again in this festival and how do you see the importance of this event in the Romanian cultural landscape?

This is the second year in a row that Brasov Opera has been invited to the festival, which is an honour and obviously the fruit of our performance last year. In this Puccini edition, we have been invited to present Tripticul, in my opinion and not only, the most complex work of the whole festival. Three works, each of them with a separate direction, each of them with a separate scenography, with separate casts, and here I will put a little emphasis, to our pride, absolutely all those who will be on stage at the festival in Bucharest belong to Brasov Opera, they are our soloists. And some of our opera artists will be joining the soloists on stage in certain roles. One person will be cast in two roles. It is an individual cast for each of the three performances. I am very happy for this, I am glad that we have the necessary human and artistic resources to be able to face such a challenge.

Please tell us about your collaboration with guest conductor Cristian Sandu.

This is an older collaboration that the Brașov Opera has with conductor Cristian Sandu, and this time, for such a title, obviously we had to bring in a maestro that we love very much, a man who knows our orchestra, our group of soloists. Since the time was not long enough to do more rehearsals, we had to make the time we had available more efficient, and with his experience, he succeeded and you will obviously see the finished product on the stage of the National Opera in Bucharest.

We are fast approaching the end of the season. What can you tell us about how this season has gone for Brașov Opera?

As many of our seasons have gone with much joy and hard work. A week ago we had the premiere of "The Sound of Music", two extraordinary performances, which the audience in Brasov appreciated very much. We are now approaching the end of our season, ending our indoor season with Nabucco, then having four performances in July outdoors, in August we have again and in September, the summer season that we offer to the Brașov audience.