The 2025-2026 season of the Romanian National Opera in Timișoara opened on 20 September with a performance of Georges Bizet's Carmen. To learn more about the titles that will appear on the company's playbill in the coming months, our colleague Ioana Țintea spoke with the opera's director, baritone Cristian Rudic.

Mr. Cristian Rudic, on the 20th of September the Romanian National Opera in Timișoara opened its 2025-2026 season with Georges Bizet's Carmen, directed by Silviu Purcărete and featuring mezzo-soprano Ramona Zaharia as guest artist. How was this production received by the Timișoara audience, and what did Ramona Zaharia's return to the Timișoara stage mean?

This Carmen was an initiative of my predecessor, the legendary tenor Corneliu Murgu. I should mention that maestro Purcărete staged his very first opera production in a Romanian opera house here, with us, in Timișoara, during the previous management-just as I said. For various reasons, including the pandemic, we took quite a long break from this Carmen, which had been a true masterpiece shaped by maestro Purcărete together with Dragoș Buhagiar and David Crescenzi at the podium. I felt it had been away for too long, so I proposed reopening the season with Purcărete's Carmen.

Let's not forget that Ramona Zaharia was a soloist in Timișoara before beginning her journey to Düsseldorf and onto the world's major stages. She always returns to us with great affection, and-at the audience's request-we dared to schedule two consecutive performances. Both were sold out. I can only say that I wish every season would begin this way.

What titles will appear on the opera house's playbill in the coming months?

Starting January, we will continue presenting our repertoire of opera, operetta, musical theatre, and ballet. Of course, when it comes to the Timișoara audience, we are… well, fairly conservative. But I must say-I'm not sure whose merit it is-that our audience has grown noticeably younger. I cannot tell you why. According to surveys, and simply by looking around, you hear more languages spoken in the corridors during intermissions. The audience is very diverse and genuinely younger. In terms of taste, however, they remain rather traditional.

So we'll continue focusing on what we've inherited-our unbeatable 19th-century core: Verdi, Puccini… We're working to bring L'elisir d'amore and The Barber of Seville back to the Timișoara stage soon, again with maestro Crescenzi.

We care deeply about continuing the tradition of well-crafted operettas. Timișoara has a strong history in this field, going back to the founding of the opera. The very first premiere was Aida in 1947; less than a year later, The Bat (Die Fledermaus) became a local tradition, followed by the other great operettas of the repertoire. And not because we treat operetta as opera's Cinderella-far from it! We know very well that good operetta requires performers who can dance, act, and sing. It is a genre that demands a great deal from its artists.

Our latest productions were staged by Răzvan Mazilu. Maestro Mazilu created Ball at the Savoy, a bridge between operetta and musical theatre, as well as our latest large-scale operetta, The Merry Widow, which we also presented in Bucharest at the June festival.
Before these, the theatre staged Kalman's two masterpieces: Silvia and Countess Maritza; The Gypsy Baron has also been part of our repertoire; and Die Fledermaus has long been a Timișoara New Year's Eve tradition.

As for musicals…Fiddler on the Roof continues its run, as does My Fair Lady, which one could consider the very first musical. All this completes, as I mentioned, Verdi, Puccini, and our revivals of opera buffa, a genre we want to reinvest energy into during the remainder of this season.

We are also hoping to organize a festival celebrating the opera's founding. The institution turns 80 years old - 80 years since the royal decree that established it. In 2027, we'll mark 80 years since the first Aida. We're considering closing the cycle of the previous Aida and presenting it once again in its original form, and then in the following season staging a brand-new Aida.

We would love to add The Nutcracker to our repertoire, as we are currently missing it, and we aim to premiere Pagliacci to accompany Cavalleria Rusticana: both of which were postponed last year to the next budget cycle, as the finance experts would say.

Will there be special guest artists on the opera's stage this season?

We can proudly say that apart from Abigaile and Turandot (the only two roles) we have everything covered in-house. Of course, we are considering guests, and we have frequently invited major names from the Romanian school of singing. We hope to invite George Petean again. We are thinking once more of Ramona Zaharia, of Judith Kutasi, and of our dear friend of the house, Željko Lučić, one of the great baritones. We aim to complement our strong internal cast with equally strong artists from outside.

Looking at the program, I also noticed a series of guided tours - already "a regular practice of the house," as you described in a previous interview. How would you characterize this experience for the Timișoara public, and why should people participate?

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we timidly announced the first tour. The turnout was so overwhelming that now you see them on our posters, and even extras added on top of that. We try our best to make these tours increasingly detailed and extensive, to show people what truly happens behind the curtain, a bit of the stage, and the workshops.

People are extremely interested. When we reach the painting studio and explain that this is where the sets for four theatres in Timișoara are built, we realize we are part of a remarkable experiment, perhaps unique in Europe: within this very building, the Palace of Culture, four institutions coexist.

Usually, it's the public that comes to the opera. I always ask them, when I'm the one leading the tour: "Have you been to the opera before?" And 80% say yes. These are people who know what it's about and come out of genuine passion.

The tours have grown so much that we can barely keep up, and we've begun distributing the task among more and more colleagues, especially since they often need to be held in English, German, or with translation. But it is an experiment we pursue with great joy.

The institution is important for the city, but even more for the region, I would say. And I believe it's essential to make it familiar to the region, so that the people of Banat feel proud to have an opera house.