The founding of the Festival, planned for 1933 within the World PEN Congress in Dubrovnik, was postponed because of the events connected with World War II. When the Festival was finally founded in 1950, it was in Europe traumatized with war, which searched for a completely new way of life and national coexistence. Yet, that was Europe divided with the Iron Curtain. By a combination of circumstances the Dubrovnik Festival found itself on the boundary of this bipolar world. That is why it had for decades been the only place where the finest artists from the Eastern Europe and the West could meet and create together. This fact was crucial in determining not only the quality of the Festival, but also its importance in the European culture.
The Festival is a major feature of the modern Dubrovnik, because it amalgamates in a perfect way the great historic and cultural tradition with modern everyday life. The residents of Dubrovnik carefully watch over both major and minor events at the Festival. They never hesitate to express their opinions – which, of course, are not always affirmative. On the other hand, this critical «intimacy» is one of the Festival's treasures. Dubrovnik is one of the few places in Europe where artistic production is not just a part of the cultural industry, but also a matter of the deepest public interest. This is an essentially different creative position in comparison with that of many festivals in Europe, which achieve high artistic results, yet are actually marginalized within their own social space.
The ambience and the City as a unique meeting place of the world's and Croatia's finest artists will remain the basic feature of the forthcoming Festival. The Dubrovnik Summer Festival doesn’t use open air venues as mere visual attractions, and face walls of the palaces and beautiful gardens only as a set. In Dubrovnik, the space is decisive in creating a theatrical event. This is the reason why Festival’s catalogue, during more than six decades of existence, comprises more than 70 various venues! That actually includes almost the entire City and the sea surrounding it, which results in a unique bond between the City and the Festival.
The Festival is the world's and Croatia's spiritual and cultural centre, the place where theatrical performances are rather being created than being imported, and the meeting place where new ideas and projects are being born.
The Programme of the 62nd Dubrovnik Summer Festival
Theatre
This season’s theatrical premieres include the play The Scenes with an Apple by the Croatian writer and theatre director Ivana Sajko, Sophocles' Oedipus the King, directed by the Slovenian director Eduard Miller, one of the most outstanding theatre directors in the region, and Vlaho Stulli's Kate Kapuralica, directed by Dario Harjaček.
As the second part of the trilogy beginning with the play Rose is a Rose is a Rose, the play The Scenes with an Apple was first performed in Bern in 2009. Ivana Sajko holds several awards for her achievements in the field of literature. Her works have extensively been performed abroad while this is her first collaboration with the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. The Scenes with an Apple were inspired by the biblical motif of the expulsion from paradise. From the present-day point of view the story opens the question whether it is possible to construct the site of the Garden of Eden in the society of catastrophe, and whether it is humane to desire one after all. Sophocles’ Oedipus the King is a part of the trilogy based on the ancient myth about the doom over Laius’ family. The tragedy deals with the man, the way other people see him and the way he sees himself. In his comedy Kate Kapuralica, Stulli described two days in the life of a Dubrovnik family on the verge of existence, and the brutal physical and verbal relations between the family members, using the language of the anxious and hungry commoners who wish to overcome their own helplessness. A partial “salvation” by means of the eldest daughter’s marriage is the ultimate life success of the protagonists who represent the class of the eternally poor city people.
The Programme also includes two successful last season’s plays - contemporary play The Delivered by the Croatian writer Tomislav Zajec and directed by Franka Perković and N.V.Gogol’s The Government Inspector directed by the Slovenian director Jernej Lorenci. The Delivered is a story about nine protagonists, who are going through the deepest personal struggle for reaching salvation, speaking with the painful voice of loneliness, perfectly set in the ambiance of the outlying and in war devastated Hotel Belvedere. Known story of the human stupidity, greed and corruption in The Governement Inspector, performed by the Festival Drama Ensemble and the Zagreb Youth Theatre has, in this short period, become one of the most desired visiting plays on the stages around the region and has gain numerous awards and recognitions.
Music
The attractive music programme of the 62nd Dubrovnik Summer Festival includes all music styles, from the baroque to contemporary music, jazz and folklore, from the symphonic, operatic and chamber music to the piano and violin recitals. The extensive programme is traditionally opened and closed by the concerts of big orchestras. The music programme will begin on July 11 with the concert of the Zagreb Philharmonic, pianist Piter Jablonski and conducted by the renowned Polish conductor Antoni Wit.
They will perform the pieces of Papandopulo, Moniuszko, Chopin and Mahler (Symphony No. 5). The Festival will be closed on August 25 with the concert of the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra and the last year's Orlando Award winner - the world’s famous Croatian countertenor Max Emanuel Cenčić , under the baton of Maestro Ivan Repušić. In this gala closing concert, mezzo-soprano arias from the operas by Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini will be performed.
One of the highlights of the music programme is, for sure, the piano recital of Ivo Pogorelich (on July 25at the Rector's Palace Atrium), who is considered to be one of the greatest pianist geniuses of today. This will be his first performance at the Festival after 26 years. His programme will include Chopin's Sonata in B flat major and Nocturne in C minor, as well as the Sonata in B minor by Franz Liszt, whose 200th anniversary of birth is celebrated by the entire musical world this year. Another attractive recital is the performance of the violin star Vadim Repin, who will be accompanied by the Russian pianist Sergei Tarasov (August 13).
Highly expected is also the concert of cello virtuosi Stjepan Hauser and Luka Šulić accompanied by the Zagreb soloists. These two young, talented and innovative cellists have become world famous by their interpretations of the Smooth Criminal and Welcome to the Jungle, and will soon accompany Elton John on his world tour.
A large number of superb artists and ensembles will perform at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival for the first time, including: La Scala of Milan strings Archi Scaligeri with the soloist Maria Pavlović, on clarinet on July 16, Italian early music ensemble Il Giardino Armonico on July 21 and the Soloists of the Munich Philharmonic with the cellist Monika Leskovar on July 27, who will besides compositions of Händel, Avison and Haydn perform Breiner’s attractive piece Beatles go Baroque. Violinist Pinchas Zukerman will, with his Zukerman Chamber Players perform on August 6, while the Spanish guitarist Pepe Romero will with the Zagreb Soloists perform on August 8.
Other performers include the intriguing piano duo Berezovsky & Ghindin who will appear on August 18. These two distinguished Russian pianists, highly praised by the music critics, are considered to be true successors of the greatest Russian pianists.
The programme will include the works of Arensky, Rachmaninov, Bolcom, Copland, Gershwin, while the programme of Berezovsky's recital taking place on August 20, will include the works of Brahms, Gould, Chaisin, Gershwin, Albéniz, Chopin and Ravel.
August 23 is reserved for the recital of the mezzo-soprano Renata Pokupić, currently the most sought out Croatian operatic singer in the world's operatic milieu, for this occasion accompanied by the pianist Roger Vignoles. Their programme will include the works of Frantz Schubert, Václav Tomášek, Bedřich Smetana, George Enescu and Antonín Dvořák.
The concerts of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra have become a Festival’s tradition. This year the orchestra will be joined by two Dubrovnik-born artists: the pianist Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak and the mezzo-soprano Dubravka Mušović
Šeparović. The programme will comprise the works of Liszt and Mahler, as a celebration of their anniversaries. The second concert of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra is reserved for the pianist Stephen Kovacevich, who will perform Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4.
The audience will this season have the opportunity to enjoy two contemporary dances. First is One&Two by the International Choreographic Arts Centre Amsterdam and world recognized contemporary dance authorities Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten and the second is the ballet My Name is Nobody, in co-production of the Croatian National Theatre in Varaždin and the Music Biennale Zagreb. The painting exhibition titled Hommage à Franz Liszt by Dubrovnik painter Nikolina Šimunović will be opened on July 12 in the Sponza Palace. The Dubrovnik Summer Festival continues to organize seminars for outstanding young Croatian artists, who will this season have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest present-day musicians - the guitarist Pepe Romero, the violinist Pinchas Zukerman and the pianist Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak.
The 62nd Dubrovnik Summer Festival is traditionally supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Dubrovnik, the Dubrovnik-Neretva County and many sponsors including the general sponsor VIPnet, which has been the Festival's sponsor for an entire decade.