This year’s edition of Croatia’s most important cultural event is returning with full audiences and an even fuller festival programme! The 47 festival days will feature more than 60 drama, music, dance and other events on some 20 site-specific locations all over Dubrovnik.
The first premiere theatre production are Lovers directed by Aleksandar Švabić, set in front of St. Jacob’s church while the pinnacle of the drama programme will certainly be the first Festival staging of Lorca’s tragedy Blood Wedding by director director Franka Perković Gamulin on Lokrum island. On the Lovrjenac Fort, the Festival’s youngest audiences will enjoy the musical-theatre piece The Enchanted Forest, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by the great Croatian children’s author Sunčana Škrinjarić, directed by Lea Anastazija Fleger.
This Festival summer will bring three hit reruns, the cult Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet as directed by Paolo Magelli on the Lovrjenac Fort, last year’s Orlando Award-winning play Lion House, adapted for stage by Marijana Bukvić from the eponymous Ivan Salečić debut and directed by Aida Bukvić, and the much in demand Mara and Kata by Saša Božić, done in collaboration with Doris Šarić Kukuljica and Nataša Dangubić. Busy as ever, the Gradac park will host multiple Festival performances, two of which will be acclaimed Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb productions, first their Pride and Prejudice ballet based on the beloved Jane Austen classic, directed and choreographed by Leo Mujić, and in the very finale of the Festival, Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend by Marina Pejnović, a director well-known by the Festival crowd.
The highlights of the musical programme are world-renowned virtuosos such as violinist Roman Simović, pianist of a uniquely direct performance Fazıl Say, celebrated Croatian pianist Lovro Pogorelić, and the Decca and Deutsche Grammophon’s blockbuster guitar star Miloš Karadaglić. Two concerts by the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra await this Festival summer, first conducted by maestro Ivan Hut and then under the baton of the charismatic young conductor Dawid Runtz, who will be joined as the DSO’s by rising young talents on the Croatian classical music scene, flutist Lucija Stilinović and harpist Veronika Ćiković. The honour of closing the Festival, as is tradition, will be given to the Croatian Radio and Television Orchestra who will perform this summer once again under the baton of Dubrovnik’s favourite maestro Ivan Repušić, and joined by one of the most promising young sopranos today, Nadine Sierra alongside this year’s “Boris Papandopulo” National Competition for Young Musicians winner, tenor Filip Filipović.
To see the full programme of the 73rd Festival, click here.