The International Timișoara Music Festival will take place from April 26th to May 29th, 2026, marking its 50th edition this year. Considered the most important event of its kind for the people of Timișoara, the festival is organized by the Timișoara Opera House and the city's "Banatul" Philharmonic. Regarding the opera section, Mihaela Marcu, interim manager of the National Romanian Opera House in Timișoara, spoke with our colleague, Ioana Țintea.

Mihaela Marcu, Verdi's opera Aida opened the jubilee edition of The International Timișoara Music Festival on Sunday, April 26th, 2026. How was the opening event, which featured a cast of special guests, received?

I can say without any exaggeration that the opening of Aida is a moment of genuine celebration for Timișoara. We are, of course, talking about a monumental production, one that all the more so marks the 79th anniversary of the first performance on the stage of the Timișoara National Opera House, a production that demands not only significant artistic resources but also a special collective energy, and this energy, honestly, I can say was felt both on stage and in the auditorium, and even in front of the opera house, in Victoria Square, where we had the live broadcast and where a fairly large crowd had gathered, which delighted us immensely.

The audience's reaction was extraordinary; at the end, we actually had a standing ovation that lasted about 10 minutes, if not a little longer, a very clear sign of the emotion and impact the performance had. It was one of those rare moments when you feel a truly deep connection forming between the stage and the audience, if I may say so, a moment of pure magic.

It was essentially an opening of the festival to the entire city, not just to the audience in the opera house, a gesture through which I believe opera reaches out to the people.

Continuing the series of events as part of The International Timișoara Music Festival, what titles are featured in the lyrical section of this anniversary edition?

We have strived to shape this season as a statement of artistic identity. We feature essential works from the repertoire such as "Rigoletto", "La Bohème", "Tosca", "The Marriage of Figaro", works that I believe define the European operatic tradition, but also titles that open up to other realms of expression and sensibility, such as "Dancing Queen," "Scheherazade," "Bodies & Emotion," and even "Peter Pan" for our youngest audience members.

We obviously wanted a balance between the great masterpieces and, why not, stylistic diversity, so that the audience could traverse a very broad arc of opera history in just a few weeks.

Could you please name a few of the most prominent artists who will be performing on stage at the Timișoara Opera House?

We have made every effort to bring in leading artists from the international opera scene, including figures such as Anita Rachvelishvili, making her first appearance in Romania. She is a renowned artist, highly sought after specifically for the role of Amneris, as she is considered one of the most important performers of this role.

Of course, we have strived to bring in artists at the top of the opera world to give us even greater international visibility and who, in fact, help us achieve our ultimate goal of establishing the festival as a cultural landmark among Europe's most important events, such as Luciano Ganci, Federico Longhi, and Francesca Tiburzi, who are highly regarded abroad for the specific roles they perform, such as Francesca Tiburzi in Tosca, Ilaria Quilico, as we had her in Aida, or Federico Longhi in the role of Rigoletto.

Alongside them, we have a number of other talented guests who are rapidly rising to prominence abroad and, of course, artists from our own opera in Timișoara, because I very much want this encounter between international experience and valuable local identity to be a vibrant one and, why not, an authentic one.

Looking back on this anniversary edition of The International Timișoara Music Festival, what message would you like to convey to the people of Timișoara?

This edition, marking 50 years of The International Timișoara Music Festival and, I must say, 80 years since the founding of the opera is, first and foremost, a celebration of a cultural community and of the history of this festival. My message, or our message, is, in essence, simple yet profound: opera is alive, it is relevant, it is for all audiences, it belongs to the city, and it exists through its audience.

I invite our fellow Timișoara residents and even people from outside of Timișoara to join us and rediscover this space not merely as an institution, but as an experience, because beyond titles and names, what remains is the shared emotion.