The evening dedicated to love and opera, called "Opera e Amore" was organized as part of the music program of the XXXVIII Grad Teatar festival on Tuesday evening in the church of Santa Maria in Punta.
soprano Petra Radulović and a pianist Jelena Šiljeg they delighted the Budva audience with their extraordinary performance. The audience had the opportunity to enjoy arias from the most beautiful operas of the classical repertoire, including Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni" and "The Magic Flute", Donizetti's "La Pasquale" and "Daughter of the Regiment", as well as Verdi's “Rigoletta” i Puccini's “Bohemia”.
With her powerful voice and emotional interpretation, Radulović conveyed all the passion and depth of these great musical works, while Šiljeg added a special charm to each performance with her virtuoso piano playing.
The special charm of the evening was contributed by the guests of the concert, the cellist Kosta Popovic and a pianist Petar Popovic, who performed the "Spanish Suite" Manuela de Fale. Their performance brought a touch of Spanish temperament to the church walls, which the audience welcomed with strong applause.
Šilje had her first solo concert at the "Grad Teatar" festival in 1996, and she does not hide that she has many memories of this festival.
"'Grad Teatar' was one of my biggest inspirations to start this way. It reminded me now of a concert, when we received a gift from 'Grad Teatar' for this performance. Among the gifts is a CD with a recording from the 14th festival 'Grad Teatar'. There is a recording from a concert that made me decide to do this work, to collaborate with singers. Dunja Vejzović sang then and I was fascinated by that repertoire. The connection of poetry and music inspired me, and it was exactly at the 'Gradu Teatr' that year. I think it is about 2000. It is wonderful that the festival is still going on, despite everything that is happening and various circumstances that are probably not in its favor. However, a group of enthusiasts are running it and not letting up, which is really wonderful. It's wonderful to have the opportunity to perform here again. Petra and I were supposed to perform last year as well, but unfortunately she got sick, so she couldn't sing. The idea of Petra speaking between arias is really excellent. It is much more interesting to listen to such recitals than two hours of pure music. We chose her repertoire primarily, and I adapted to it, and we are very satisfied", emphasized Šiljeg.
After the concert, Radulović said that she was glad that she had the opportunity to treat the audience to this concert.
"This concert was postponed and we finally came to realization. For years I have been talking to my colleagues about how our audience is not sufficiently educated, how we don't have opera, how people don't have the opportunity to see and hear opera. I realized that it has to start from us, opera singers from this country, that we need to educate the audience step by step. I talked with Jelena, who was my teacher, and we came up with the idea to try it here. It's a solo concert, so it would be nice if people didn't just listen to aria after aria, but to know what it's about, to go a little deeper, and that's why I wanted to bring them closer to the plot between the arias. It helps me too, because I can better immerse myself in the character. When there is applause, I immediately have to switch to another character, which is a bit difficult and not so nice", explained Radulović and added that she is glad to be at "Gradu Teatr".
"I'm glad to be at the Budva City Theater, that this concert took place in this beautiful church. I've already performed here between churches, so I'm glad to be at the festival again. I had the idea that the concert would be more focused on women and feminism, but the lyrics would be too long. In the end, it was more important for me to say what it is about, and therefore to see the characters I interpret. Basically, the power of women was the mediator throughout the whole program, and that's something we focused on. I perform female characters, and that brought a special charm because all the arias are love, in relationships between a man and a woman where the woman often turns out to be stronger than the man, which we are happy about," concluded Radulović.
The musical program of the XXXVIII Grad Teatar festival ends tonight when the world famous pianist Simon Trpčeski will give a concert.
Bonus video:
