The 73rd Dubrovnik Summer Festival was closed last night, 25 August with a magnificent Opera Gala in front of the Cathedral on which outstanding opera stars, soprano Adela Zaharia and tenor Filip Filipović performed with the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra under the direction of maestro Ivan Repušić, after which actors and musicians put away the Libertas flag in a short ceremony set to Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D major until the next festival summer.
The carefully selected programme of the last night’s concert started with the Overture from the opera Zampa, one of Ferdinand Hérold’s most successful work and Juliette's waltz from the opera Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod followed, as well as two compositions by the Italian opera great Gaetano Donizetti, namely Nemorino's aria "Una furtiva lagrima" from the second act of the opera L'elisir d'amore and Lucia's aria "Regnava nel silenzio from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor. Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic Dance in G minor from Slavonic Dances, Op. 46 and Rusalka's aria "Měsíčka na nebi hlubokém" ushered in Giuseppe Verdi’s works, first Alfredo's aria "De' miei bollenti spiriti" from La Traviata, then the virtuoso dance Ballabile I from the third act of the opera Macbeth, the duet of Violetta and Alfredo "Parigi, about the emperor" also from La Traviata, Overture to the opera La forza del destino, and finally Violetta's "É strano! - Semper libera" from the first act of La Traviata. The audiences’ delight did not stop then, however, as the musicians performed three encores to thank the crowd for their whole-hearted support and cheers – French composer Léo Delibes and his famous Les filles de Cadix, Granada by Agustín Lara and Ernest de Curtis’ Non ti scordar di me. Afterwards, the winner of the Orlando Award for the best artistic achievement in the drama programme at the 73rd Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Jadranka Đokić spoke verses of the Ballad of the Moon, the moon from Lorca's Gypsy Ballads, while the members of the Festival Drama Ensemble Doris Šarić Kukuljica, Perica Martinović, Nikša Butijer, Maro Martinović and Marin Klišmanić with the musicians Dubravka Šeparović Mušović, Đive Franetović Kušelj, Toni Kursar and Ivan Repušić, accompanied by Bach's Suite No. 3 in D, folded up the Libertas flag until next summer, thus formally closing the 73rd Dubrovnik Summer Festival, which successfully held 74 different programmes over 47 festival days.
