Duration as an artistic vow, in the sign of heritage, music and memory

Solemn and elegant, responsible and spiritual, professional and visionary - with the performance of two national anthems, of Montenegro and the European Union, inspired speeches that illuminated culture, heritage, art and Kotor itself from different angles, the words of the Branka Sbutega "in the name of forgiveness, reconciliation and love", uttered by the youngest admiral of the Boka Navy, and the bells from the Cathedral of Saint Tryphon - on Statehood Day, the jubilee, 25th KotorArt, opened.

In recent years, the Festival's grand opening ceremonies have become a space for reflecting on the cultural and historical heritage of the City, Boka Bay and Montenegro. This is confirmed by this year's grand opening concept. The organizers commissioned a musical piece that Young Tarbuk composed on verses by Don Branko Sbutega; the composition Triptych was performed Ivan Brkanović, a native of Kotor; the recently founded ensemble in Boka Kotorska – the Boka Kotorska Symphony Orchestra – performed. In this way, the opening ceremony transcends the protocol framework and becomes an artistic program with its own dramaturgy, in which music is used as a medium of cultural memory.

Leaning on the last overtones of the bells of the Cathedral of Saint Tryphon, the first bars of the composition Songs to Music for symphony orchestra and bass-baritone opened this work with warrior-pagan cries of brass and powerful beats of a large drum. The cycle was created based on four poems by Don Branko Sbuteg from the collection The Way of the Cross and Other Poems, which composer and conductor Mladen Tarbuk selected, connecting them with a common theme – music. Recognizing the importance that music had in Don Branko’s spiritual and intellectual world, Tarbuk underlined the introspection that the poems emit.

From Etude 3, which cheerfully opens the cycle with the baritone's entry, through a distant, more associative than literal reference to Beethoven's work in the poem Beethoven, to the (auto)biographical layer of the poem Bjelinom prsta crnu dirku grlim, which can be understood as a kind of musical metatext of the poet's pianistic experience, Tarbuk builds a complex network of musical and semantic connections. The final Toccata rounds off the cycle with a more direct quotational invocation of Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Starting from a literary template, with the interweaving of illustrative and associatively shaped quotations, the composer builds his own musical language realized in vocal and orchestral expression.

Bass-baritone Krešimir Stražanac In a technically demanding section, he interpreted the different characters of these songs – from loveliness and playfulness to restlessness and inner anxiety. A special expressive role was played by register contrasts, which sometimes change almost abruptly and are additionally emphasized by the use of falsetto. In Tarbuk's case, this procedure does not act as a deconstruction of traditional vocal identity, nor as a grotesque violation of the vocal norm, but rather as a means of subtle contrast – introducing the aesthetics of tenderness, fragility and intimacy. Falsetto thus becomes an expression of the inner voice, moments of loneliness, but also of pure sound quality. Stražanac maintained the clarity of diction, thus keeping the expressive elements in the service of musical dramaturgy.

The (re)establishment of the Boka Bay Symphony Orchestra represents an important step forward in the musical life of this region. Bringing together instrumentalists of different generations – from established artists and pedagogues to young talents – the orchestra has already shown its readiness to perform complex and demanding scores in one of its first major projects. As part of the opening ceremony of KotorArt, it also performed the monumental work Triptych by Ivan Brkanović, in collaboration with the Academic Choir “Ivan Goran Kovačić” and soloists, soprano Mihaela Kristina Mlinarić in tenor Rez Fekri.

Created in the composer's mature creative period, the work Triptych, even after almost a century since its creation, retains a strong artistic and emotional poignancy. Through a complex musical discourse, it evokes folk rituals related to death, with one of the most striking elements being the lament from the tradition of the Crmnica nahija. Created in the interwar period, and then reworked during World War II, this work also carries a distinctly personal dimension: Brkanović woven into it his own grief for the numerous inhabitants of his native Škaljari who perished in the Italian executions. In the interpretation by the Boka Symphony Orchestra and the Ivan Goran Kovačić Academic Choir, the monumentality of the score and the deep expressiveness of its content were combined.

Everything that the festival has built over the decades in terms of concept, program and organization was summarized in the title of this year's event - Duration. This word did not only denote the continuity of a festival, but also the duration of ideas, values ​​and cultural connections that have shaped KotorArt and its relationship to the city, heritage and art over time. That is why this year's opening was not just a celebration of an anniversary, but a confirmation that for a quarter of a century, KotorArt has been managing to shape its own cultural identity through artistic programs and redefine the relationship of contemporary creativity to heritage.