Saimir Pirgu

Saimir Pirgu was twenty-two when Claudio Abbado cast him as Ferrando in Così fan tutte, an unusually direct route from the Claudio Monteverdi Conservatory in Bolzano, where he studied with Vito Maria Brunetti, to the international stage. Born in Elbasan on 23 September 1981, he had taken first prizes at the Caruso competition in Milan and the Tito Schipa in Lecce in 2002, and Vienna gave him its Eberhard-Waechter medal in 2004. The Albanian tenor built his career on the lyric roles that suit an even, forward-placed voice — Rodolfo, Alfredo, the Duke, Nemorino, Tamino — and has sung them at La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden, the Paris Opéra, the Berlin State Opera, the Bolshoi, Salzburg and the Concertgebouw, for conductors from Muti and Mehta to Jansons, Barenboim and Pappano, and for directors as unalike as Zeffirelli, Peter Stein, Michael Haneke and Woody Allen. Verdi's Requiem and Szymanowski's Król Roger are preserved on video; the Shepherd in the latter was his Australian debut, at the Sydney Opera House in 2017. His recital album Il mio canto appeared in 2015. Italy granted him citizenship in 2014, and Tirana gave him the key of the city in 2016. In 2024 he sang in Sofia and Vienna with the Sofia Philharmonic, on programmes shared with Angela Gheorghiu. He had studied the violin before turning to singing, and Cavaradossi, Don José and Hoffmann came to stand beside the lighter lyric parts.