Romanian National Opera, Cluj-Napoca Pavel as stage director. Famous artists of the early days of the institution include Constantin Pavel, the first director of the institution and the first tenor to sing the Radames role in the Cluj-Napoca Romanian Opera, the Italian conductor Egisto Tango, the composer Tiberiu Brediceanu, the baritone Dimitrie Popovici-Bayreuth. The Romanian Opera managed to establish in a very short period of time a very good and prolific artistic team. In just its first 2 years (1919–1921), it staged 99 performances, including Giuseppe Verdi's "Aida", Charles Gounod's "Faust", de Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly", Nicolae Bretan's "Luceafărul", Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana", Richard
José Cura Rusticana" and "Pagliacci" at the Met in New York, and "Turandot", "Cavalleria rusticana" and "Pagliacci" in Zurich. Cura continues to tour concert halls and opera houses around the world, performing his signature roles of Otello, Samson, Canio, Turiddu, Don José, Stiffelio, Cavaradossi, Dick Johnson, Calaf, Edgar etc. – debuting in "La Bohème" as Rodolfo at the Zurich Opera House in 2010. He took his "Otello" to the Met in 2013, not before saving the last performance of "Carmen" at the same opera house, a favour which he had been asked to do the very moment he landed in New York,