Syrigana. An opera in five acts
Syrigana, Kosovo
29 June 2025

Petrit Halilaj, born 1986 in Kosovo, has developed an opera in collaboration with the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. The artist’s first operatic work will form the centrepiece of his upcoming solo exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin. It is inspired by the legendary site of Syrigana, a three-thousand-year-old village near Halilaj’s hometown of Runik. According to local legend, Adam and Eve came here to get married.

This new large-scale open-air performance builds on the artist’s 2018 research and public performance project Shkrepëtima, where he partially restored the House of Culture in Runik, and restaged fragments of key Albanian plays originally performed there. The term “Shkrepëtima”, meaning “flash” or “spark” (or more figuratively, a sudden and intense feeling) in Albanian, symbolizes awakening thought and references a cultural magazine of the 1970s and 1980s central to Runik’s heritage. The project was a first step in revitalizing the war-damaged and long-neglected House of Culture, a vital cultural hub from the Yugoslav era. Halilaj and locals cleaned and stabilized the ruins to host the performance, leading the Ministry of Culture to declare it a national asset, thus ensuring its future restoration and preserving Runik’s cultural identity.

Halilaj’s new operatic work takes its cue from a humble travelling theatre of the 1980s and 1990s that filled a crucial cultural and educational void created when the House of Culture was, like many Albanian-language institutions at the time, all but shut down by the Serbian regime, with only its tearoom remaining in operation.

Consisting of an ensemble of five performers and a tiny stage with red curtains on a trailer, the theatre was towed by tractor from red curtains on a trailer, the theatre was towed by tractor from work, Halilaj elaborates on this enduring symbol of and instrument for cultural resistance and resilience. He collaborates with a team of dedicated musicians and performers to explore its potential to build new worlds and imaginaries in Kosovo and the world beyond.

Since 2016, the small village of Syrigana has been protected as an archaeological site spanning prehistory, late antiquity, and the Middle Ages. It is situated at the foot of a striking rock plateau believed to have once supported an ancient castle fortification. Legends abound in the rugged landscape of this village located a stone’s throw from Petrit Halilaj’s hometown of Runik. Runik itself is a well-known Neolithic site, famous for the Runik Ocarina, the oldest musical instrument found in the Balkans. This places the area in a key position for understanding early human history in the region. In the aftermath of the Kosovo War (1998-99), efforts to preserve historical sites are part of broader attempts at cultural reconciliation. Today, the region is supported by ongoing efforts for heritage protection and recognition amid Kosovo’s evolving identity as an independent nation. The site’s preservation and investigation could foster unity through shared historical understanding.

Syrigana recasts primal origin fables in the vocabulary of Halilaj’s work, playfully conflating biblical and contemporary references as it posits love as a grounding force in the face of an uncertain future. Adam and Eve, here recast as a fox and a rooster, are expelled from the Garden of Eden. They travel across the seven skies in search of a place where their love can thrive, finally arriving via KFOR (Kosovo Force) helicopters upon the great rock plateau in Syrigana. They are welcomed by the locals who want to marry them, yet their union is threatened by the machinations of a mysterious wedding tailor. Will their love survive?

Photo by Arben Llapashtica