Žana Marendić, mezzo-soprano

Ante Jerkunica, bass

Marica Rogošić, violin

Sunčana Tušek, cello

Zoran Velić, piano

Hari Zlodre, piano

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Bass Ante Jerkunica and his colleagues and friends, mezzo-soprano Žana Marendić, violinist Marica Rogošić, cellist Sunčana Tušek, pianist Zoran Velić and conductor and pianist Hari Zlodre, are preparing a gala evening of the most attractive opera excerpts, where, in addition to the most famous ones, such as Rossini's La calunnia from The Barber of Seville, or the arias Delilah and Carmen from the masterpieces of French opera of the 19th century, Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saens and Carmen by Georges Bizet, illuminate the not-so-everyday repertoire, such as excerpts from Rossini's The Italian Woman in Ažiro or Massenet's Don Quixote. The Verdian phrase will be demonstrated by our celebrated bass in two basic arias of the bass repertoire - the touching aria Fiesco from the opera Simon Boccanegra as well as the aria of King Philip from the opera Don Carlos, Ella giammai m'amó! Opera excerpts are interspersed with instrumental excerpts by F. Chopin, F. Mompou, P. Mascagni and J. Massenet, performed by some of the most prominent Split musicians.

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A central figure in the musical life of the first half of the 19th century, Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) is historically equally important as the creator of brilliant works in the opera buffa genre, as well as the reformer who codified the new conventions of the opera seria genre, which dominated Italian opera until long after Rossini himself had stopped composing opera. He made his breakthrough to the forefront of opera art with the masterpiece The Barber of Seville, composed to a libretto by Cesare Sterbini, based on a French comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais. Known for his speed of composition, Rossini wrote the opera in just three weeks. Although the first performance in February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina in Rome was not particularly successful, probably due to the speed of preparation, the opera became a favorite after only a week and soon dominated stages all over Italy and the world. The famous La calunnia aria is Basilio, the music teacher of young Rosina, a ward of Doctor Bartolo - he advises Bartolo to drive away her suitor, Count Almaviva, by spreading a rumor about him, which is like a breeze. A few years earlier, in 1813, another of Rossini's still popular operas, L'Italiana in Algeri, was created, a work in which he combines the style of opera serie with opera buffo. Energetic rhythms and buffo declamation, energetic overtures, great crescendos, all of these are Rossini's inventions that appear already in this earlier work. Algerian bey Mustafa is fed up with obedient women from the harem and wants an Italian girl. He will choose Isabella, who in the aria Cruda variety! Amor tyrant! she regrets her fate, a terrible shipwreck that brought her to Algeria. She is soon introduced by Mustafi and they meet in the duet Oh! Che muso, che figure!

Harmonies and delicate decorations make Mazurka Op. 17 no. 4 in A minor by Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), a work of almost modernist sonority. The melody filled with painful nostalgia, which briefly lightens up in the middle part of the composition, describes Chopin's longing for home: Chopin only recently settled in France, having become a refugee due to the political situation in Poland.

One of the leaders of the movement for the reformation of French music in the second half of the nineteenth century, composer, pianist and organist Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), contributed to almost every genre, wanting to enrich French music in the field of symphonic, concert and chamber music. However, his advanced ideas were not always understood in France. He had to present his first opera, Samson and Delilah, outside of France; he was helped in this by Franz Liszt, who premiered it in Weimar in 1877. The biblical-themed opera contains numerous large scenes imbued with a touch of exoticism in harmony and orchestration, as well as in melodies filled with chromaticism and melismas. With her sensual aria Mon coeur s'ouvre á ta voix, one of the most famous in the French repertoire, Dalila seduces Samson and manages to learn the secret of his strength.

The opera Don Quixote is one of the late works of Jules Massenet (1842-1912), created in 1910. The works of Massenet's most productive period were part of the permanent repertoire of the Paris Opéra and Opére-Comique, while those created after the turn of the new century, no longer manage to arouse great interest. Don Quichotte is an exception - premiered on the opera stage of Monte Carlo, it soon reached the Paris Opera, where it was often performed over the next twenty years. One of the reasons for the success was the famous bass Fyodor Chaliapin, for whom Massenet composed the title role.

Catalan composer Frederic Mompou (1893-1987) is best known for his piano miniatures, which exude a high individuality. His style developed in contact with the musical life of Paris, where he lived until the beginning of the Second World War, but the influences of Catalan folklore are also recognized in him. An almost naive and direct aesthetic, which is called primitivist, is also recognized in Canción No. 6 in E flat minor, which he dedicates to Arthur Rubinstein.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) is the creator of a series of impressive bass roles, striking characters whose authority and power are in conjunction with mature age, but which does not take anything away from their liveliness and emotional potential: the strong personality of Fiesco, who stands in the way of love of his daughter and his political enemy, is one of the vividly depicted characters in the opera Simon Boccanegra, which belongs to strong dramas

Verdi's middle period. The aria A te l'estremo addio is addressed to Fiesco's dead daughter in the opera's prologue.

Short veristic dramas with a fast and violent plot flow received a necessary break in the form of short orchestral intermezzos, some of which were immediately recognized as pearls of operatic literature. The most famous among them is the Intermezzo of the opera Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945), a drama about jealousy and a love triangle, which will fatally unravel one Easter morning in a Sicilian village. While the villagers go to church, Santuzza remains waiting in the square, and the Intermezzo depicts her inner struggle and passionate love for Turiddu.

One of the most famous operas of all time, Carmen by Georges Bizet (1838-1875), began its life uncertainly, with the audience not accepting it at the Opéri Comique in Paris when it was first performed in March 1875. The story of an unyielding gypsy woman who loves freedom more than love was the shocking but beautiful melodies soon won over the audience. However, Bizet did not manage to experience the great success of Carmen, because he died a few months after the premiere. Among the most famous arias is Carmen's famous habanera L'amour est un oiseau rebelle from the first act of the opera, in which she reveals her vision of love, as a rebellious bird that no one can tame.

One of Giuseppe Verdi's strong bass characters is King Philip from the opera Don Carlos, the Spanish king who will marry his son's fiancee for political reasons: this is the basis of the plot of the tense and dark political-family drama, another masterwork of the mature Verdi. The aria Ella giammai m'amo (She never loved me) carries the weight of Filip's knowledge of the failure of his actions and the impossibility of repairing what has been done.

The operatic intermezzo from Massenet's opera Thaïs, which he composed in 1894 for the Paris Opéra, is another operatic moment of intimate reflection and character transformation. In this opera, it is Taida, an Alexandrian courtesan, who after a dissolute life experiences enlightenment and devotes herself to religion, starting to live as a hermit. This transformation takes place during her famous Meditation, a piece for orchestra in which a gentle, cathartic melody is delivered by the solo violin.

The famous Comic duet of two cats is attributed to Rossini, but it is a compilation of Rossini's melodies from the opera Otello, made in 1825 by the vocal composer Robert Lucas de Pearsall. The comic contest between two cats, in which the singer's vocal technique is mocked, is a favorite of the singers and the audience and is often performed as the finale of concerts.

Gioachino Rossini: L'italiana in Alegri, Cruda sorte! (aria Isabella)

Gioachino Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia, La calunnia (Aria of Basil)

Gioachino Rossini: L'italiana in Allegri, Oh! che muso (duet by Isabella and Mustafa)

Frédéric Chopin: Mazurka Op. 17 no. 4 in A minor, Zoran Velić, piano

Camille Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila, Mon coeur s'ouvreá ta voix (Aria Delilah)

Jules Massenet: Don Quichotte, Marchez dans mon chemin (duet of Quichotte and Dulcinea)

Frederic Mompou: Canción No. 6 in E flat minor, Hari Zlodre, piano

Giuseppe Verdi: Simone Boccanegra, A te l'estremo addio (Fiesco aria)

Pietro Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana, Intermezzo, for cello and piano

Georges Bizet: Carmen, L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Aria Carmen)

Giuseppe Verdi: Don Carlo, Ella giammai m'amó! (aria of Philip II.)

Jules Massenet: Thaïs, Meditation, for violin and piano

Gioachino Rossini: Duetto Buffo di due Gatti

Performers:

Žana Marendić, mezzo-soprano

Ante Jerkunica, bass

Marica Rogošić, violin

Sunčana Tušek, cello

Zoran Velić, piano

Hari Zlodre, piano