Long weekends of home isolation are behind us, but our theatres are still being closed as the measures taken against corona virus do not allow large gatherings. This is the reason we ask you to continue following our online season and to recall all the performances which were filling the hall of ours and other theatres in the world, as well as the artists who left an indelible mark in our theatre history. Performances of the Opera & Theatre Madlenianum are of a cult, for many of them an extra ticket was required, some had their loyal spectators each time being performed and some were revived at the very request of the audience; fortunately all have been recorded for upcoming generations. In the seventh streaming week all the hits have been prepared for you: the opera La Traviata of G. Verdi, directed our remarkable guest from Saint Petersburg, Yuri Alexandrov and under the conducting baton of Stanko Jovanovic, with a brilliant soprano Olga Malevic Djordjevic in it. The performance was premiered on 8 May 2006 and revived in the same team on 25 January 2011. For Friday 15 May, we have prepared the ballet from 2004, as the most visited ballet performance of our house – Triptych, in the choreography and staging of our guest from Barcelona, Ramon Oller. He came to our theatre with great creativity and miraculous energy and in a few weeks of work he staged a modern, moving and emotional ballet, which we believe changed the direction of our ballet artists and brought out the best in them, which they did not know they were capable of. The artists, with Konstantin Kostjukov among them, presented themselves in a contemporary ballet dance expression, but Oller primarily moved, “opened” and brought to light the dancers such as Danica Arapovic and Ana Ignjatovic. On Sunday on our repertoire broadcasts the drama play of Mikhail Bulgakov, Don Quixote, the first theatre directing of our famous actor Dragan Gagi Jovanovic, premiered on 28 Decembre 2005. The scenes with Dragan Jovanovic as Don Quixote and Petar Kralj as Sancho Panza are unforgettable, bringing us the joy of theatre. This play was also the first appearing for the actors who have proved themselves on the theatre stages so far: Nada Macankovic, Petar Bencina and Igor Bencina.
The opera La Traviata directed by Yuri Alexandrov attracted equal attention botheat the premiere and at its revival five years later. ”Traviata of our time”, Violetta from the subway” is a modern vision of the famous story of Alexandre Dumas, the son of The Lady of the Camellias. In our story Violetta Valéry is not a lavish courtesan from a Parisian salon, since the director bared her, deciding not to hide her behind the glitter of crystals and gold. Her only chance in this world is to sell herself. The constant feeling of suffering and loneliness in this play is turned into a dream. Dream enables Violetta to live, she is dreaming of a man who will come and rescue her from her misery. “"Violetta's dream meets the reality that is, in essence, more cruel and cynical than her real life. Apparently, the world of abundance, so attractive and unattainable, has sunk into the prostitution of human relations. Her attempt to reach this world becomes a terrible, phantasmagoric nightmare", says the director. Directing setting of Yuri Alexandrov is trying to retrieve the beauty of illusion, of an imagined world. In the setting of Madlenianum all is unusual, the orchestra, magnificently conducted by Stanko Jovanovic is on the very stage, as a revue orchestra, to some part hidden by the paravane and permanent Alexandrov’s associate Vyacheslav Okunev’s set design which embodies the metropolis. The costumes are also contemporary as well as some characters not present in in the original score, such as a transvestite (in a great performance by Dusan Anastasov), who additionally contributes to the action and the milieu Violetta originates from and returns to. It was certainly a brave endeavor of our house to take Olga Malevic Djordjevic for this very demanding soprano role, who made her debut on the opera stage with this role, but it was a justified endeavor as well, because as the critic Marija Adamov wrote on the occasion of the revival: “Bringing the expected breath of new life and a lot of "fresh blood" into the performance, today the 36-year-old artist showed excellent technique and impeccable intonation, skillful breath control and the ability to create equally high-quality tones in a wide vocal range and with the idea of an optimistic ending of the opera, she sang in an extremely natural and fruitful voice, without the usual insistence on trembling, a low voice or the intermittent whisper of the dying person.” The atmosphere of contemporariness and hit was certainly contributed by other singers, primarily Sasa Stulic (alternation Dejan Maksimovic) as Alfredo, Miodrag Misa Jovanovic in alternation with Vladimir Andric as Germont, Tanja Obrenovic, Valentina Taskova, Nebojsa Babic, Goran Krneta, Nenad Nenic and others. ...
Triptych is even today considered by ballet lovers to be one of the best ballet performances on the Belgrade stage, which was called a "true dance endeavor" after its premiere. The guest of our House was one of the leading Spanish choreographers, the successor of Nacho Duato and he first had an art workshop with our ballet dancers and thus introduced them to his choreographic Triptych. Primarily, Ramon Oller for the first time presented one of the most influential and among ballet dancers, the most favorite techniques of modern dance - the Limón technique, originating from the famous Mexican choreographer José Limón. As one of the basic contemporary dance "teachings", Limón technique is based on researching the use of body energy in relation to gravity, persistent work with "weight", especially emphasized when falling, jumping, landing ... The movement seems to be stimulated by the breath that permeates the body, it is started or stopped by the breath, and thus it becomes unrealistically weightless, assimilated. Oller’s work with our ballet dancers, for whom it was the first, both happy and shocking encounter with Limón ballet dancing methodology, did not only provide us to get great ballet dancing piece of art, but also to get to know with their little discovered abilities up to then. We had the opportunity to see the principal Konstantin Kostjukov for the first time in a contemporary choreography and it was so soul-stirring, emotional and technically precise one!
Triptych is conceived as a kind of three-part altar that explores the deepest human feelings, a solo to the music of Saint-Saëns, a seductive duet to Schubert's music in which this exciting evening ends with melancholic music of Sephardic Jews and Argentine milonga, in which the most emphasized modern choreographic technique found fertile ground in the ballet dancing of young soloists of the Belgrade Ballet: Sanja Ninkovic, Olga Olcan, Ivana Glisic, Dejan Kolarov, Milan Rus, Nikica Krluc and Mihajlo Stefanovic. With a clear transition from personal, intimate to the world of the environment, pain, the ballet is inspired by the Holocaust, exile, as well as the harsh everyday life of Belgrade. "On the stage is performed a ballet dance poetry which is dramatic, technically complex, but also led with the light choreographic hand dance poetry takes place on the stage. Being himself impressed by individuality of the young ballet dancers who he was working with, Oller approached a new technical "literacy" and created a different expressiveness of their movement. That took the whole thing a step further. Coming out of their shells in an instant, investing good effort, the ballet dancers showed how even a short rehearsing time can make a strong and positive effect ", writes a critic of the magazine Vreme. According to critics and the general public, the revelation of the evening in this performance was Ana Ignjatovic as Violetta, a ballet dancer of modern orientation, who gave impetus to the whole piece with the firmness of her dance expression, as well as a very expressive Danica Arapovic who brilliantly interpreted the Woman deprived of love in a duet with Kostjukov.
In the year of the great jubilee of Miguel de Cervantes and his novel Don Quixote, the Opera and Theater Madlenianum joined the celebrations that celebrated the 400th anniversary of the first Spanish edition of this immortal work all over the world. Being of the opinion that the best dramatic adaptation based on this novel is that of the writer Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of the novel The Master and Margarita, we chose it truly believing that Don Quixote and his companion Sancho not only are Spanish heroes of the 17th century, but also, after four centuries of imperishable glory, did they become French, German and Russian and our Serbian heroes. To turn the Bronze Age into the golden age of chivalry, to storm heedlessly into windmills for heavenly glory, to begin a fight against evil wizards - isn't that a part of our sweet and bitter recent and older history as well?
This performance has showed as well that “courage accompanies the famous ones". Dragan Jovanovic had already been a popular actor, known for his humor and bravura to bring the audience to tears of laughter and that charm accompanies him even today, but he was never before entrusted with any theater directing. Nevertheless, Madeleine Zepter's refined taste and knowledge of theater were again unmistakable in choosing the play to be performed pin her endowment, as well as the collaborators to remain recorded in the history of our theater. We were lucky that the great Peter Kralj played the role of Sancho Panza in our House. He was bravura, only his modesty in life did not allow him to praise himself and that this is the reason of the short biography in the program of this play, parts of which we quote: "He would act and act wherever invited into a good company and for a role that seemed sensible to him. He has won awards and awards, but his favorite award is that the audience still has the patience to watch him and listen to him. “. In the play with the set design of Jasna Dragovic, costume design of Ljiljana Petrovic, choreography signed by Sonja Divac, the cast are Branka Pujic, Nebojsa Ljubisic, Rade Markovic junior, as well as the musicians Veljko Nikolic-Papa Nik and Vuk Bradic.
The plays are streamed via YouTube channel and streaming of the above mentioned performances is not of any commercial nature and its sole aim is giving support to citizens and inability of the theatre to work due to the general ban in measures against pandemic. The streamed recordings do not have the character of a public performance of the play. All information about our online performances as well as the interviews with the authors and protagonists can be found on the website www.madlenianum.rs and on social networks. For any further questions, please contact: publicrelations@madlenianum.rs Follow us!
