ABSTRACT
The Strait of Otranto marks the narrowest passage between Apulia and Albania, as 56 miles separate the towns of Otranto and Vlorë. Such a short distance between two countries; yet the strait has been the scene of horrendous clashes between Eastern and Western cultures since Roman times. In 1990, following the collapse of communism, Albanians fled to Italy and Greece by all means at their disposal. The stories of these migratory waves of biblical proportions have been told many times and captured “live” by the international media. However, the incident that occurred in the Strait of Otranto on March 28, 1997, remains an indelible mark of infamy for all concerned: the Albanian decommissioned military patrol boat the Katëri i Radës, carrying 142 people, mostly women and children, collided with the Italian Navy corvette Sibilla. The Albanian vessel sank, 81 people lost their lives, and the captains of both ships were held responsible for “shipwreck and multiple manslaughter.” The Apulian writer Alessandro Leogrande and the composer Admir Shkurtaj, an Albanian refugee and now an Apulian resident, wrote in 2014 a one-act opera, Katër i Radës, which portrays the tragedy in a compelling musical language that fuses Albanian folklore, free jazz, and avant-garde. The author of this chapter, an Apulian native and a US immigrant, discussed with Admir Shkurtaj the circumstances that led to the composition of this opera.
