Between the 16th and the 21st of July, the first edition of the "Hunedoara Lirică" International Festival of Classical and Opera Music will be taking place. The artistic director of this festival, Theodore Coresi, has agreed to do an interview with my colleague, Octavia Galescu:

We have already commenced our preparations for bringing this extraordinary program to life. We wish to present a high quality performance to the audience of Deva, Hunedoara and Petroşani.

Who will be your guests and from where are they originating?

From Russia, the United States of America, Spain, Poland, Chile, Mexico, Korea, Japan, Turkey, Greece, China, Austria, Italy, Hungary and our beloved Romania. The well-known and famous baritone Anooshah Golesorkhi, a name of reference in the panoply of international opera singers, and here, in Deva, he will be performing the main role of Rigoletto. Accompanying this name is our honorary guest, Julia Novikova, an important young singer in today's world, having won, at only 23 years old, the famous Operalia competition, organized by maestro Placido Domingo. She will be in Romania for the first time and she will be performing the role of Gilda, in Rigoletto, at Deva. I will mention yet another name, Sanja Anastasia, a Serbian mezzosoprano.

Who would you mention from our Romanian singers?

In the main role from Tosca, we have Catrina Lal, who is, in fact, the daughter of writer Romulus Lal, originating from Hunedoara. Also, we have guests from the Opera from Timişoara, Octavian Vlaicu, a well-known bass, Orest Pâslariu Ranghilof, a high-class singer from the Bucharest Operetta, and many young singers. And we have our final show, Cosi fan tutte, an enthusiastic production by the Deva Theater of Art, where there are a lot of young people, singers, so we wanted to comprise both youth and maturity into our program.

What expectations do you have from the audience?

We gladly and enthusiastically await the audience for this first edition. It is, in fact, an edition that continued a tradition from 2011, with me as the founder and initiator of the Opera Nights festival, and I'm glad that, after all this time, we still continue this tradition of "Hunedoara lirică" cultural county, in an international fashion.