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www.samirpirgu.com
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| | Pirgu Saimir | | tenore | 
Tenor Saimir Pirgu, just thirty years old, is already being ranked as one of the fastest-rising artists on the operatic and concert map in a career only a decade old. With a voice of uncommon beauty, his communicative, convincing and artistic assumptions of many of the most popular roles in the lyric repertoire have received critical and audience acclaim whenever and wherever he performs.
In the 2011-12 season, the Albanian-born tenor concentrates the first part of the year in the United States. Returning to the Los Angeles Opera, he sings Ferrando in a Nicholas Hytner production of Così fan tutte conducted by Company Music Director James Conlon (Sep. 18, 22, 24; Oct. 2, 5 & 8) Next Mr. Pirgu makes his Washington National Opera debut as Edgardo in a Christopher Alden directed Lucia di Lammermoor (Nov. 10, 13m, 15 & 18).
Mr. Pirgu rings in 2012 at the Theater an der Wien in a new production of a double-bill of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta (Vaudémont) and Rachmaninov’s Francesca da Rimini (Paolo) (Jan. 18-31). At the Hamburgische Staatsoper he splits his time between two bel canto heroes - Lucia’s Edgardo (Feb. 22 & 26) and Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore (Feb. 29; Mar. 2). Opposite Angela Gheorghiu he sings Rodolfo in La bohème at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre de Liceu (Mar. 16 & 19) before reporting to the Opéra National de Paris, where he performs Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni (Apr. 8, 12, 14, 16, 19 & 21). The final months of the season are spent in three of Austria’s premier festivals, first at the Wiener Festwochen, where he sings Alfredo in a new Deborah Warner staging of La traviata (May 27; Jun. 2 & 5). At the Styriarte in Graz he takes part in the Dvořák Stabat Mater conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Jun. 28, 30 & July 1) before returning to the Salzburger Festspiele to sing Berlioz’s Messe Solenelle with Riccardo Muti leading the Wiener Philharmoniker (Aug. 15, 16 & 19).
Further solidifying his presence in the United States, in the 2012-13 season Mr. Pirgu will be heard on both Coasts. In the Fall (September 29, Oct. 3, 11, 14, 16 & 19) he looks forward to a double debut: his initial engagement with the San Francisco Opera and his first time singing Tebaldo in their new production of Bellini’s I Capuleti ed i Montecchi. In March he returns to the Metropolitan Opera for a house role debut, Alfredo in La traviata (March 14, 18, 23m, 26, 30m, April 3 & 6). He also is eager for his re-engagement with the Washington National Opera in 2014 for La bohème. His previous United States engagements include: Rinuccio in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi for his U.S. debut in 2008 in Woody Allen’s high-profile production at the Los Angeles Opera, conducted by James Conlon; the same role served as his introduction to the Metropolitan Opera in 2009. That summer he first appeared with the Santa Fe Opera as Alfredo to the Violetta of Natalie Dessay, under Frédéric Chaslin, to open the Festival’s season. In 2010 he and James Conlon were reunited when he sang Ferrando in Così fan tutte at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival.
Saimir Pirgu’s journey began in the town of his birth, Elbasan, where he studied the violin from age seven at the Liceo d’Arte and later at the Conservatorio in Albania’s capital, Tirana, where Communist authorities dictated that his instrument of choice would be the violin. It was a rare live TV broadcast from outside the Communist bloc of a performance by Luciano Pavarotti from Rome, which would shape his future. At the age of nineteen he left Albania to initiate his musical studies in Italy at the Conservatorio Monteverdi in Bolzano, where his unique vocal talent was discovered and nurtured by Vito Brunetti, who remains his coach to this day. He completed his training at the Conservatorio in only two years and won the Best Singer Prize in 2001 at the Umberto Saccchetti Competition in Bologna at the age of twenty; the following year he went on to win two coveted international awards: the Enrico Caruso competition in Milan, followed by the Tito Schipa Competition in Lecce. 2004 was to prove to be the breakthrough year for Saimir Pirgu; at only twenty-three he was chosen by Claudio Abbado to sing at the Teatro Comunales of Ferrara, Emilia Romagna and Modena. It was on this tour then, in the role of the ardent Ferrando in Così fan tutte - fittingly disguised as an Albanian – that Pirgu made his international debut.
A passionate ambassador of his native country, he returned to sing Nemorino (which has become one of his signature roles) in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at the National Opera of Tirana and was subsequently invited to Vienna by Intendant Ioan Holender. So began his fruitful collaboration with the Wiener Staatsoper, commencing with his highly praised interpretation of that role, earning him the Eberhard Wächter Gesangsmedaille. The same year also saw his Salzburg Festival debut as Ferrando under Philippe Jordan and a tour of Japan singing both Nemorino and Ferrando with Seiji Ozawa.
Repeat invitations and successful debuts in the foremost opera and concert venues swiftly succeeded one another, notably at the Staatsopers of Hamburg, Munich and Berlin, the Teatro dell’Opera and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Opernhaus Zurich, Teatro Real Madrid and Concertgebouw Amsterdam, adding to his repertoire acclaimed role debuts such as Alfredo (La traviata) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni). Along the way he has collaborated with leading international conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Lorin Maazel, Franz Welser-Möst, Seiji Ozawa and Antonio Pappano.
He made his Royal Opera, Covent Garden debut as Rinuccio in Richard Jones’s production of Gianni Schicchi conducted by Antonio Pappano with Bryn Terfel in the title role. The same role served as his debut vehicle at the Opéra National de Paris and, in a concert performance under Vladimir Jurowski, at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Always keen to bring opera to a larger audience, in 2009 Mr. Pirgu sang Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème, given a modern setting in a high-rise apartment, produced in Bern by Swiss television and broadcast live to an audience of two million.
Mr. Pirgu is well-represented in the audio and video arenas. Among his CD releases is “Angelo, Casto e Bel,” an aria collection ranging from Bononcini, Pergolesi, Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi and Massenet (Universal). On the Dynamic label are two live performances: Rossini’s early comic gem, La cambiale di matrimonio, from the Pesaro Rossini Festival, 2006 and Ramón Carni’s 1821 work, Elena e Costantino, from a 2009 Teatro Real (Madrid) performance.
Performances preserved on DVD include his assumption of the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt from the 2008 Styriarte (Styriarte Festival Edition), a 2011 La Scala Die Zauberflöte (Opus Arte), La bohème (Schweizer Fernsehen), and La traviata in a 2009 Opéra Royal de Wallonie production (Dynamic), among many others.
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