WAGNER
DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN

Pavel Baleff, Conductor

In 1996, Baleff was awarded the First prize at the Carl Maria von Weber International Conducting Competition. In 1999, he was awarded the First prize at the National Conducting Competition and the Herbert von Karajan Prize. 2003 has given him the renowned Bad Homburg Conductor Award. In 1998 Baleff directed the Chamber Opera Dresden. From 1999 to 2002, he was Musical director of the Rostock Opera Theatre. Since 2002, he has been Deputy General Musical Director of the Opera Theatre in Halle. Since 2007, he has been directing as Chief conductor the Baden⁠-⁠Baden Philharmonic, as well as the Carl Flesch International Academy in collaboration with the concert masters of the Berlin Philharmonic. He has worked as guest⁠-⁠conductor at the Opera of Hanover and at Komische Oper Berlin. He has conducted over 30 orchestras in Germany, as well as numerous orchestras in Europe.

Since 2006, Pavel Balleff has worked each year as guest⁠-⁠conductor at the Semperoper Dresden (Die Zauberflöte, Rigoletto and Der fliegende Holländer). He has collaborated regularly with the Regional orchestra of Cannes, the Balears Symphony Orchestra Palma de Mallorca and the Orchestra of the Tito Schipa Foundation, Lecce.

In 2009, he has made a concert with the eminent Edita Gruberova, as well as a CD in 2010 with Krassimira Stoyanova and the Munich Radio Orchestra for the Orfeo label. In 2010, Baleff was invited as Musical director of the Opera Festival in Avenches, Switzerland where he will lead the premiere of Lucia di Lammermoor. In 2011, Baleff will accompany the world⁠-⁠famous tenor Ramón Vargas on his European tour. Das Rheingold is the debut of the maestro on the Sofia Opera stage.

Erich Wächter, Conductor

Erich Wächter studied conducting, piano, and vocal accompaniment at Berlin’s Music University. Immediately after completing his studies, he got his first engagement as conductor at the Pfalztheater in Kaiserslautern. From there his path led him, through the State Theatres of Saarbrücken, Karlsruhe and Darmstadt, to the National Theatre of Mannheim, where he held the position of first conductor.

In 1989 he was appointed Music Director and Opera Director in Lübeck, where he remained until the end of the 2000/2001 season.

Very active as a guest conductor, he has appeared at important European venues, such as: Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Staatsoper Hamburg, Nationaltheater München, the opera houses of Zurich, Stockholm, Oslo and Vienna; as well as at the head of several orchestras.

Alongside his artistic career, Erich Wächter has held conducting classes at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Lübeck, conducting the University orchestra.

Erich Wächter was General Music Director of the Theatre of Detmold from August 2002 to July 2013.

After a successful production of Götterdämmerung and of a complete Ring cycle during the 2012/2013 season at the Opera of Sofia, Erich Wächter was offered the position of General Music Director, which he has held since September 2013.

During the 2015/16 season Erich Wächter returned to conduct at the State Opera of Hamburg.

Plamen Kartaloff, Director

Plamen Kartaloff has realized over 180 productions – since the beginning of the 70s, when he started his activity as an opera director. Operas from different eras in the development of the genre – baroque, classicism, romanticism to contemporary works. Chamber and grand opuses, buffos and seria operas.

Characteristic is his interest in rarely staged or unknown/forgotten operas such as The Unexpected Encounter, or The Pilgrims to Mecca – Gluck, Lakmé – Delibes, Fedora – Giordano, The Thieving Magpie – Rossini, Don Quixote – Massenet, Mavra, The Fox, The Rake’s Progress – Stravinsky, Tsar and Carpenter – Lortzing, The Guarany, Fosca and Maria Tudor – by the Brazilian composer Gomes, the musical Fiddler on the Roof – Bock and Stein, etc.

Along with the classical opera repertoire, he has a special affinity for Russian and Bulgarian opera works – Mussorgsky, Borodin, Vladigerov, Pipkov, Goleminov, etc. He has made productions in prestigious festivals – national and European.

In Kartaloff’s huge creative output, there are many Bulgarian premieres of works from the Baroque – by Monteverdi, Purcell, Galuppi; from the classicism – by Gluck, Haydn; from the 19th century – by Rossini, Donizetti, Puccini; from the 20th century – by Stravinsky, Kholminov, etc.

A unique fact in the recent history of music and stage art in Bulgaria is his remarkable realization of Wagner’s most large-scale and innovative works – The Ring of the Nibelung (2010–13), Tristan and Isolde (2015) and Parsifal (2017), presented only with Bulgarian opera singers for the first time in Bulgaria and the Balkans!

In 2012, Siegfried from Wagner’s tetralogy was performed with success at the Third International Christmas Opera Forum in Minsk, Belarus. Since 2014, at the end of each opera season, the National Opera presents the cycle The Ring of the Nibelung and Sofia has become a preferred destination – Wagner Festival, for lovers of Wagner’s work from dozens of countries around the world.

Sofia Opera and Ballet