Пучини завинаги

20 July 2024, Saturday, 8:30 p.m., HYATT REGENCY PRAVETS RESORT

Puccini Forever

Soloists: Milla Mihova – soprano & Matteo Falcier – Tenor

Conductor: Thomas Roesner

World Class Soloists Captivate the Pravets Art Nigts 2024 Audience

For the second year in a row the Sofia Philharmonic will be the musical host of the prestigious music festival in Pravets, Pravets Art Nights 2024.

The Festival is organized by the Mozart Celebrations 04 Association with the financial support of the National Culture Fund.

On July 19th and 20th , on the enchanting stage by the lake of the Hyatt Regency Pravets Resort, classical music aficionados will have the opportunity to meet world-renowned soloists and conductors.

The first evening is dedicated to the music of Gershwin and features the virtuoso German pianist Sebastian Knauer, who, together with our principal orchestra, will present Rhapsody in Blue. The programme also features the Cuban Overture and the Porgy and Bess Suite.

In a career spanning over 30 years, that began with his concert debut at the age of 14, Sebastian Knauer has played in prestigious venues such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Gewandhaus - Leipzig, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, London's Wigmore Hall, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Wiener Konzerthaus, Lincoln Center-New York, the Harris Theater in Chicago, the National Center for the Performing Arts-Beijing and Topan Hall in Tokyo.

He has released 15 critically acclaimed CDs. He has recorded works by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Gershwin, Barber, Bernstein and Copland for Berlin Classics, Warner Classics, Deutsche Grammophon and Naxos. His joint project with Daniel Hope, East Meets West, won the 2005 Echo Klassik Award and a Grammy nomination. The piano concerto "This is (not) Beethoven - Variations for Piano & Orchestra" by composer Arash Safaian, had been released on CD (BMG/Modern Recordings) in August 2020 and entered the German Classic Charts (#6) and the US Billboard Charts (#15) shortly after

Alongside these achievements, Sebastian Knauer founded his own festival "mozart@augsburg" in 2012 and took on its artistic directorship. The festival has featured artists such as Philippe Entremont, Mariss Jansons, Sir Roger Norrington, Menahem Pressler, András Schiff, Daniel Hope, Emanuel Pahud, the Emerson String Quartet, Artemis Quartet, Hagen Quartet, Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, and the the Zurich,Vienna and Paris chamber orchestras. In 2017 he also took on artistic direction of the International Music Festival at Schloss Bad Berleburg, and in 2021 he initiated yet another festival in the city of Aachen under the name “Ludwig FUN Beethoven”.

The Puccini Forever Opera Gala, dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the great composer's birth, will bring together on 20 July the opera prima with an extraordinary sense of humour and artistry Milla Mihova and one of the most charismatic tenors of our time Matteo Falcier. Under the baton of Maestro Thomas Rösner, they will perform arias and duets from Puccini's most iconic operas.

Just a few months ago Milla Mihova fascinated the audience, partnering the opera superstar Bryn Terfel. Her professional path is marked by the lessons of her mother Darina Takova and Lucrezia Messa - an expert in the Voice Craft method. Milla is a Fellow of the Raina Kabaivanska Foundation at the New Bulgarian University and of the Boris Hristov Foundation for the Opera Studio at the Santa Cecilia National Academy in Rome, where she specialised under Renata Scotto. He has extensive concert activity in Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. Her current engagements include debuts in Germany as Abigaille in Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco at the Mainz Opera House and as Madama Cortese in Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims at the Augsburg Opera House, in Nabucco at the Opera Open Festival in Plovdiv and at the State Opera Varna, as well as numerous recitals nationally and internationally.

The Italian tenor Matteo Falcier is an alumnus of the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He further honed his vocal technique and gained experience at the Academy for Young Singers at the Scala di Milano, as well as at the Accademia “Rodolfo Celletti” in Martina Franca. He made his debut in 2010 in Cimarosa's Il Matrimonio Segreto as Paolino. Soon came invitations from various theatres in Italy for more roles - Rudolph in La Boheme, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, Fenton in Falstaff, Tebald in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Alfred in La Traviata, the Duke in Rigoletto.

Along with the concert programme, this year the festival will also organise master classes in piano and Cultural Management.

Tickets for the concerts at prices of 50, 75 and 90 BGN are available at the box office of Bulgaria Hall and in the partner network of Inventim.

Exclusive tickets with dinner included.* priced at 110, 135 and 150 BGN

* Dinner is only on the day of the purchased ticket for 1 person in the Mercato Restaurant at disposal from 6 pm to 11 pm.