This year the 74th Dubrovnik Summer Festival, held from 10 July to 25 August along various site-specific locations in Dubrovnik, will showcase almost 70 theatre, music, dance, folklore, and other programmes to local and foreign audiences during the 47 days.
This season’s grand opening ceremony, set for Monday, 10 July in front of St. Blaise’s Church at 9 pm, is directed by the Festival’s Assistant Artistic Director for Theatre Saša Božić based on a script he co-wrote with theatre artist Nataša Dangubić. Partaking in the ceremony are the Festival Drama Ensemble, acting students from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and Split, Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, Pro musica Mostar Academic Choir, Libertas Mixed Choir, Dubrovnik Chamber Choir, Blasius Choir, Linđo Folklore Ensemble, and Lazareti Dance Studio. The grand opening ceremony will be broadcast live by the Croatian Radio and Television.
The Festival’s own productions are once again at the heart of the drama programme which will bring as many as four premieres this summer, alongside four reprises and two guest performances. The first premiere of the season is Look How Lokrum Brushes Its Teeth, co-produced by the Dubrovnik Summer Festival and Marin Držić Theatre. Based on the eponymous Ivana Lovrić Jović novel and directed by Paolo Tišljarić, it represents a chronicle of the author’s childhood, of her life with and without her father. Performing the play on Lokrum Island from 12 to 14 July are the cast: Marija Šegvić, Sandra Lončarić, Mirej Stanić, Anja Đurinović, Perica Martinović, Nika Lasić, Boris Matić and Bojan Beribaka.
The second premiere is Twelfth Night, or What You Will by Grzegorz Jarzyna and Roman Pawłowski, which uses the motifs from the iconic William Shakespeare comedy of the same name. This co-production by the Festival and Zagreb Youth Theatre is directed by Jarzyna, and it will be put on at the Lovrjenac Fort from 21 to 25 July. In Jarzyna and Pawłowski’s interpretation, the Renaissance comedy becomes a contemporary piece about fluid sexual identities fighting for their right to exist in an antiquated, patriarchal world. The protagonists engaging in a risky game of power and desires are portrayed by: Dado Ćosić, Anđela Ramljak, Mia Melcher, Katarina Bistrović Darvaš, Petra Svrtan, Doris Šarić-Kukuljica, Barbara Prpić, Mateo Videk, Toma Medvešek and Ivana Starčević.
The monodrama Masks by the actor and director Dražen Šivak is another co-production and premiere, this time by the Dubrovnik Summer Festival and Grupa Art Organisation. Its opening night is set for 12 August at the Bokar Fort where it will bring to life the commedia dell'arte tradition and present it to wider audiences. In the form of a lecture, the actor on the stage explains the meaning of masks and archetypes in commedia dell'arte form, which significantly influenced the classical Dubrovnik dramatic literature.
The final theatre premiere The Melancholy Women of Ragusa is an original project by the Festival’s Artistic Director Dora Ruždjak Podolski. The play’s subject matter is taken from archives of the historical Republic of Dubrovnik which had, in its great desire to protect its women, oftentimes systemically worked against them. Some of the play’s heroines had been aware of it, others had not; some rebelled and resisted, while others suffered in silence; some opposed their given roles and rank, some resigned themselves to it. However, each one of them did something that history has noted – and remembered. The Festival Drama Ensemble, made up by Nataša Dangubić, Gloria Dubelj, Anica Kontić, Nataša Kopeč, Iva Kraljević, Lana Meniga, Lidija Penić-Grgaš, Lucija Rukavina, Nikolina Prkačin and Marin Klišmanić, will be performing the play in Gradac Park from 17 to 21 August.
To the delight of the youngest Festival audiences, once again on the programme is The Enchanted Forest, a children’s musical theatre piece based on the eponymous novel by Sunčana Škrinjarić and directed by Lea Anastazija Fleger, with music composed by Frano Đurović under the baton of Mateo Narančić. Meanwhile, last year’s successes directed by Franka Perković Gamulin, and performed by the Festival Drama Ensemble, Blood Wedding will have three reprise performances on Lokrum Island in late July. Also reprising are Aleksandar Švabić’s Lovers, also performed by the Festival Drama Ensemble, in front of St Jacob’s Church. Mara and Kata, an original project by Saša Božić in collaboration with actresses Nataša Dangubić and Doris Šarić-Kukuljica, will be making the audiences laugh the fourth season in a row as well. In the year marking the hundredth anniversary of Miljenko Smoje's birth, the characters from his iconic Velo misto have come to life on stage under the direction of Marina Pejnović, who also did the adaptation of Smoje’s novel. The festival audience will watch this Komedija Theatre production on the Revelin Fort terrace. The traditional staging of the Lero Student Theatre is once again a part of the Festival, with Mostly Sunny which continues, in line with its characteristic stage poetics and directing style of Davor Mojaš, to recognise and open up some current reflections of the fraught, sombre everyday life filled with warning winds and stifled sighs so common of autumn, and not only in Dubrovnik.
The 74th Festival’s music programme will be opened by one of the world's best pianists, the charismatic Andras Schiff, with a concert in the Rector's Palace atrium on 13 July, followed by Mariza, a renowned fado singer, who will be performing on the Revelin Fort terrace. The Zagreb Soloists, who enter their anniversary seventieth season of successful performances at the end of the year, will be putting on a concert with the excellent clarinettist Marija Pavlović. The programme in the Rector’s Palace continues with concerts which are a part of the #synergy: Sharpening the capacities of the classical music industry in the Western Balkans project, co-funded by the EU’s Creative Europe programme. A selection of young musicians from six countries of the region will perform new musical works inspired by local heritage and European values, written specifically for this occasion by the twelve young composers, in the project’s final concerts on 19 and 20 July. The German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt is one of the most sought-after and versatile musicians of today, performing as a soloist, conductor, and artistic director covering a repertoire from early to contemporary music on historical and modern instruments. He will hold two concerts at the 74th Dubrovnik Summer Festival. After a solo recital, he will also perform alongside the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra under the baton of maestro Pavle Zajcev. The Janoška Ensemble, with their impeccable Janoška style, bring the skill of improvisation back into the world of classical music, and these four musicians will present their interpretation of numerous world classics to the festival audience with a concert in the Rector's Palace atrium. There, continuing the 74th Festival’s music programme, one of the most exemplary representatives of the younger generation of Russian conductors Maxim Emelyanychev will be performing as a pianist alongside the exceptional Russian violinist Aylen Pritchin, followed by the award-winning guitarist Krešimir Bedek, and then a performance by the trio consisting of Latica Anić, Krešimir Starčević, and Marco Graziani. The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra will perform another concert, this time with soprano Josipa Bilić and under the baton of maestro Valentin Egel while the German cellist Eckart Runge will be joined by pianist Martina Filjak and saxophonist Gordana Tudor. World-renowned bass-baritone Marko Mimica will hold a concert with the Cuban pianist Marcos Madrigal, and the Hungarian violinist Kristóf Baráti, recognized worldwide as a musician of extraordinary quality with a huge expressive range and impeccable technique, will perform with the Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra. The Camerata RCO and the {oh!} Orkiestra, who have been continuously evolving for over ten years under the leadership of violinist Martyna Pastuszka, will also perform in the Rector’s Palace where the cellist Kajana Pačko and pianist Danijel Detoni will conclude this season’s music programme. Renowned Croatian jazz composer and pianist Zvjezdan Ružić will present his Pianotron on the Piazza of the Arms with a concert that the Festival offers to the citizens and visitors of Dubrovnik. The Opera Gala for the end of the 74th Festival will be hosted by the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra and Choir under the baton of conductor Tomislav Fačini, with soprano Darija Auguštan, countertenor Franko Klisović, tenor Roko Radovan, and baritone Leon Košavić.
Ballet lovers will enjoy The Great Gatsby by Croatian National Theatre in Split, choreographed and directed by Leo Mujić. The Dubrovnik audience will enjoy Francis Scott Fitzgerald's literary masterpiece set in the roaring twenties New York in early August. An integral part of the Festival's programme are performances by the Linđo Folklore Ensemble, who will take the stage on the Revelin Fort terrace four times this summer. This year their programme is based on the classical repertoire, but with a new original opening, two new choreographies, and a musical number.
The accompanying programme of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival in its 74th edition brings two exhibitions. The first one is Lightness of Youth; the title being inspired by a verse from the great Dubrovnik renaissance writer Marin Držić and his play Novela od Stanca. This exhibition will present works by the recently deceased Croatian painter and graphic artist Fadil Vejzović, while the second one, Dubrovnik Rhapsody by Romana Milutin Fabris, will, as described by its curator Andrija Seifried, continue an artistic dialogue with the City and record it with unique painting gestures. Also a part of the accompanying programme is a presentation of the autobiography Louvre is my studio, street is my museum by Braco Dimitrijević, which brings captures his life journey in 1128 pages and 300 illustrations. In addition to the author, the book presentation in Rector's Palace atrium will feature writer Staša Aras and Fraktura Publishing house’s chief editor Seid Serdarević. The collaboration between the Pula Film Festival, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, and Dubrovnik Cinemas continues this year, giving the festival audiences an opportunity to enjoy the screening of the most recent Golden Arena winner from Pula.
The Festival’s pre-programme starts on 7 July with contemporary circus and street art, currently rapidly developing as art forms in Croatia as well as Europe, and to which the Festival wants to give visibility. Through various street performances, acrobatics, aerial silk dance, clown performances, and object theatre, which will take place at different locations throughout the city, the Festival aim to bring a unique experience of the circus art to audiences of all ages.
The entire programme of this year's Festival, as well as tickets for the performances, are available on the Festival's official website www.dubrovnikfestival.hr and on the ticketing service www.ulaznice.hr, as well as at the box office at the Festival Palace (Od Sigurate 1 Street), which is open every day from 9.00 am to 9.30 pm. Purchases made with Mastercard® cards receive a 10% discount, and for amounts over €70, payments are available in 2 or 3 instalments. By purchasing tickets for two premiere theatre or three music performances, a complimentary ticket for one reprise theatre or music programme of choice is included.