Open-air Performance – CARMINA BURANA with 400 Participants at Republic Square in Belgrade on 2 September
A unique open-air musical spectacle, Karl Orff's ‘Carmina burana’, will take place at the Republic Square in Belgrade on Friday, 2 September, 2022. (Originally scheduled for May, the event was postponed due to weather conditions.)
About 400 performers will take part in the spectacle, including: two symphony orchestras, two choirs and a children's choir. The conductor will be maestro Aleksandar Kojić, and the soloists are: soprano Marija Jelić, tenor Stevan Karanac and baritone Vasa Stajkić.
The performance of this powerful work by Orff, as part of the ‘Classical Sessions’ programme of the Belgrade Festivals Centre (CEBEF), is organized by CEBEF in cooperation with the Serbian National Theatre and the ‘Stanislav Binički’ Art Ensemble. Admission is free.
‘Carmina burana’ premiered with the same lineup in Novi Sad, at the plateau in front of the Serbian National Theatre, to the delight of a large audience.
The work is written for a trio of vocal soloists (soprano, tenor and baritone), a large mixed choir and a symphony orchestra, abundantly augmented by percussion. The upcoming musical spectacle is one of the rare opportunities for such a large number of performers to appear on the open-air stage within one programme.
In addition to the standard operatic repertoire, maestro Aleksandar Kojić has also proven himself a successful conductor in the field of contemporary opera. The performance of the opera ‘Mileva’ by Aleksandra Vrebalov, which premiered at the 43rd BEMUS in 2011, won the Annual Award of the Serbian National Theatre for Best Opera Performance in 2012. French television channel ARTE recorded the performance and broadcast it for six months, which included ‘Mileva’ in the top 15 international productions recorded by this television network during 2012. In the past few years, Kojić has given guest performances at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, the Ivan pl. Zajc Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka, the Szeged National Theatre (Hungary), as well as the Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre (Russia).
Marija Jelić, soprano, gave a solo concert in Carnegie Hall in March 2021, as well as a solo concert with Italian arias in 2022 in the great hall of the Kolarac Endowment, which was filled to capacity. She performed at Plácido Domingo's concert in Tašmajdan in 2021, as well as at Martha Argerich's concert in Kolarac in 2022. Marija Jelić sang alongside Elīna Garanča in a concert performance of the opera ‘Carmen’ at the Ljubljana Festival in 2021, and performed twice at festivals in Latvia in 2022. She held ten concerts with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and maestro Darrell Ang (Mariinsky Theatre), and sang at the opening gala opera concert of the 60th Ohrid Summer Festival. She portrays the roles of Mimi and Aida at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad.
Baritone Vasa Stajkić, born in Novi Sad, studied at the Academy of Arts Novi Sad and the Faculty of Music in Belgrade with professor Violeta Pančetović Radaković. He became a member of the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad in 2000, after which he played more than 30 roles in over 400 plays at the Serbian National Theatre, and was awarded the title of Principal Opera Artist. He has performed throughout Europe and collaborated with conductors such as Fabio Luisi, Sesto Quatrini, Mladen Jagušt, Imre Toplak, Miodrag Janoski, Zoran Juranić, Marco Parisotto and others. He is the winner of the AP Vojvodina Award for the Most Gifted Young Artist, the Novi Sad Academy of Arts Аward for Achieved Results in Art, the annual аward of the Serbian National Theatre in 2008, 2013 and 2016, as well as the 2019 ‘Muzika klasika’ Award for Best Male Performer.
