The Lights of the Stage

22 September 2023 at 19:30h
Large Stage of the Opera and Theatre Madlenianum

The Lights of the Stage concert play returns again to our stage. This project, conceived as a concert in the form of a play, created under challenging working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, has proven to be a successful blend of Madlenianum's greatest hits and humorous text as connective tissue between the musical numbers. The Lights of the Stage is a play envisioned as theater within a theater, or a play within a play and also as a dress rehearsal before the premiere and the musical numbers showcase the most beautiful arias, duets, musical interludes, and songs performed on our stage since the founding of this House. Through refined texts and dialogues, a brief overview of Madlenianum's history is also presented, all depicted through musical achievements of the artists who are also the bearers of the theater's musical repertoire – Branislava Podrumac, Mina Gligoric, Vasa Stajkic and Dusan Svilar, with exceptional collaboration of the Habanera string quartet and pianists Milivoje Veljic and Dragana Andjelic Bunjac.

The premiere of this concert play was held in February 2021 under almost impossible working conditions. However, in collaboration with the concert director Robert Boskovic and dramaturge Igor Weidlich, we created a concert play that was unanimously praised by the audience, media, and critics – an evening of enjoyment, memory-making, and amusement and that such a program deserves a place in Madlenianum's regular repertoire.

So the time has come to listen to our audience and the critics! After several performances in the 2020/2021 season and several guest appearances of this program in cities throughout Serbia, we are opening the 2023-2024 Season with it on 22nd September 2023. Tickets can be purchased at a promotional price starting from 29th June.

Branislava Podrumac, soprano, is a multiply talented artist with a great transformative power, easily mastering the stage in opera, operetta, musicals, and even dramatic roles. She has graduated in solo singing from the Faculty of Music Arts in Belgrade, in the class of Professor Radmila Smiljanic. She furthered her studies in numerous master classes. She made her opera debut in 2003 as a member of the Opera Studio of the National Theatre in Belgrade, playing the title role in Puccini's Sister Angelica. She became known to the wider public after her interpretation of the main role (I) in the hit musical Rebecca by Sylvester Levay, for which she received the UMUS (Association of Musical Artists) of Serbia Award for the best young artist in 2012. This role marked the beginning of her successful collaboration with the Opera and Theatre Madlenianum, where she portrays roles such as Metella in The Parisian Life operetta, Hanna in The Merry Widow operetta, Nedda in the opera Pagliacci, Eponine in the musical Les Misérables, Franzi in the operetta Viennese Blood, Papagena in a children's version of The Magic Flute, Ora in The Dusk by Stevan Hristic, as well as the dramatic role of Vida in the play Little Secrets, directed by Goran Markovic. She is well-known for her concert performances as well. Special places in her career are dedicated to nurturing traditional and spiritual music, as well as performing contemporary classical music compositions. She is a member of several ensembles regularly performing in concerts, festivals, and special cultural events, among which are the ensembles: Libercuatro specialized in tango music, Trio Casablanca, and No Boundaries duo with a repertoire of film and popular classical music. Branislava is renowned for her educational work in the programs of the Belgrade Philharmonic (concert suite Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 2006, 2016, and 2018) and the Opera and Theatre Madlenianum (The Magic Flute for children in 2013). She has also played the lead role in the documentary feature film of Goran Paskaljevic, Belgrade: to Leave or to Stay (2002), in the production of the German-French TV channel Arte, and the main protagonist in the documentary TV films A Gift from God (1997) and The Color of the Soul (2019) by the author Vladimir Perovic. She is a member of the Association of Music Artists of Serbia with the status of an independent artist.

Mina Gligoric, soprano, completed her undergraduate and master's studies in solo singing in the class of Prof. Katarina Jovanović at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. She was declared the best student of the 2014/2015 academic year. She has won numerous awards, with a highlight being the award for the best young performer in 2019, presented by the Music Classics magazine. She honed her skills with prominent figures such as Olga Makarina from the Metropolitan Opera, David Gowland from the Royal Opera, Vladimir Redkin from the Bolshoi Theatre, Marjana Lipovsek, and others. She interpreted over 9 solo roles in one year, notably the role of Kostana in the opera Koštana by Petar Konjovic, which she premiered at the National Theatre after 60 years of its last performance. At the Madlenianum, she debuted as Pamina in The Magic Flute, Cozette in Les Misérables, and Valencienne in The Merry Widow and in the current season also as Hana Glawari in the aforementioned operetta, Fantine in Les Misérables, and Catherine Hayat in the Broadway musical The Last Five Years. She is currently engaged at the Terazije Theatre as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera musical, and she debuted in a new title at Madlenianum Theatre as Gabrielle in Offenbach's operetta The Parisian Life. At the Zvezdara Theatre, she is part of the cast in the play Felix. She also nurtures contemporary artistic creativity, this season being part of both the Rossi Festival and a project organized by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), performing compositions by Serbian authors. In the field of pedagogy, she has been a singing professor at the "Kosta Manojlović" music school, and she now also dedicates her time to popular singing technique, which is not sufficiently developed in this region.

Vasa Stajkic, baritone, is the principal at the Serbian National Theatre Opera. He began his studies at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, majoring in solo singing in the class of Professor Milica Stojadinovic, and continued at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade in the class of Professor Violeta Pancetovic Radakovic. Since 2001, he has been a permanent member of the Serbian National Theatre Opera. He made his debut at Madlenianum in the opera Pagliacci in 2011 as well as in the opera Don Giovanni, and he also successfully performed in operettas The Merry Widow and The Parisian Life. His opera repertoire includes leading roles in operas such as Resurrection, Prince Ivo of Semberia, Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, La Traviata, Ero from the Other World, Faust, Friar Cira and Friar Spira, Vladimir and Kosara, Lucia di Lammermoor, Elixir of Love, Theatre Adventures and Misadventures, The Last Summer Flower, Princess Csárdás, The Magic Flute, Carmina Burana, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, The Barber of Seville, Cinderella, The Queen of Spades, The Bat.
He has received several annual awards from the Serbian National Theatre: for exceptional artistic achievement, the role of Don Giovanni in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni in 2009, for harmonious and convincing portrayal of the role of Simon Boccanegra in Verdi's opera of the same name in 2014, and for the role of Prince Ivo in the concert performance of the opera Prince Ivo of Semberia by I. Bajic in 2016. He also received the "Music Classic/ Muzika Klasika" Award for the year 2019 in the category of Male Performer of the Year.

Dusan Svilar, tenor, was born in Subotica. He completed his undergraduate and master's studies in solo singing at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, with the role of Lensky in Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, at the Department of Solo Singing in the class of Mr. Aneta Ilic, in the class of Prof. Mr. Aneta Ilic. He performs in music and stage works, playing the role of the Phantom in the musical of the same name by Andrew Lloyd Webber at the Terazije Theatre, the role of Dejan in the musical Black Butterfly, and the role of Dragutin Dimitrijevic Apis in the musical The Secret of the Black Hand, directed by Ljubisa Ristic, in the production of KPGT. He performs as a soloist with the "Stanislav Binički" Orchestra of the Ministry of Defence, Novi Sad Big Band, Subotica Philharmonic, Zrenjanin Philharmonic, Vojvodina Philharmonic, Kaliningrad Philharmonic, and other orchestras in the region. He lent his voice to Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid and the Prince in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He has participated in numerous music festivals, winning audience and jury awards in Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Belarus, and Russia.