Paphos opera tickets almost sold out

NEARLY all 7,500 tickets have been sold out with a week to go until the ninth Paphos Aphrodite Festival.

Organisers predict the rest of the tickets to be snapped up within the week.
This year’s festival sees the performance of Verdi’s Il Trovatore by the the Abai State Academic Opera and Ballet theatre from Kazakhstan.

“We chose those artists because of their well known cast and reputation. We were also advised by the producer about the high artistic level of this performance,” said Nassos Hadjigiorgiou, a member of working team of the festival and Marketing manager of Paphos Tourism Committee.

“Every year we try to involve some Cypriot artists in the event this year we will be joined by Maria Papaioannou and Marianna Souris,” he added.

As is the tradition, the stage will be placed at the harbour castle venue where the 2,500 capacity seating construction is already in place.

“The artists will perform three times on August 31 and September 1 and 2 at 8pm and as it looks like each time it will be a sell out,” said Hadjigiorgiou.

“Fifty per cent of the tickets were sold to Cypriots, mainly from Paphos and Nicosia, the rest were bought by tourists and foreign residents who are mostly English and Russian.”

Ticket prices will remain the same as last year and will range between £20 and £35 for the side stands and £45 for the central stand.

This year’s production is set to cost the organisers around £235,000 – a number far less than last year, when Paphos was visited by the by the famous State Academic Mariinsky Theatre of Russia staging its production of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera.

Thinking ahead, Hadjigiorgiou added, “Next year, we will try to expand, and bring more artists so we can set a proper festival. We will try to do something extraordinary and spectacular as it will be an anniversary event.”