The third edition of the 'Opera Nights' Festival took place this year between 10^th-14^th July. An outdoor opera festival, the only one of this kind in Romania, which started timidly three years ago with only a few events and which in 2013 managed to bring the audience three operas (Verdi's The Troubadour, Don Pasquale and The Elixir of Love by Gaetano Donizetti), a musical - My Fair Lady by Frederick Loewe and a Verdi-Wagner Gala - the concert that opened the festival on 10^th July, 2013.

His Highness, Prince Radu of Romania, and the French Ambassador, Philippe Gustain, attended two out of the five opera nights. If the first two editions took place at the Corvins' Castle in Hunedoara, this year the festival's general manager, Alexandru Gruian, and the art director, the well-known soprano Daniela Vlădescu, chose another venue with a rich historical meaning - the esplanade Lapidarium, located in the yard of the Renaissance building Magna Curia in Deva, housing the museum of Dacian and Roman civilization.

Four productions of the 'Oleg Danovski' National Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Constanta were performed at this edition of the festival and what I can say for sure is that not only opera lovers from Deva and Hunedoara came to view the performance, but also people from other parts of the country and even from abroad. I attended three of the productions: Donizetti's operas Don Pasquale and The Elixir of Love and the musical My Fair Lady by Frederick Loewe. Of course, the place is not very generous in terms of acoustics or art direction solutions, so classical productions, like those of Donizetti's operas, fall short of their intended aims. However, we had the chance to listen to established artists, such as the tenor Robert Nagy or the bass Mihnea Lamatic, and to beautiful voices, with a bright future, such as the soprano Laura Eftimie or the baritones Cătălin Ţoropoc and Marius Eftimie.

The musical My Fair Lady, performed in Deva on 14^th July, 2013, benefits from the direction of the renowned Alice Barb: a modern, attractive and energetic vision. The leading roles were held by Lucia Mihalache, Liviu Manolache and Mihnea Lamatic. It was an important evening for the audience that packed the approximately 500 seats and who applauded enthusiastically the artists' performance. It was an evening that leads us to hope that the 'Opera Nights' Festival has every chance of becoming an established cultural event, being, at least until now, unique in Romania.