The Slovene National Theatre (SNT) Opera and Ballet Ljubljana and SNT Drama Ljubljana have joined other theatres around the world in putting together a varied online programme for lovers of the performing arts to enjoy from the comfort of their own homes.
Opera and Ballet Ljubljana has prepared eleven short musical and dance performances featuring small groups of singers and dancers, available to view on YouTube from 3 December, “This Merry Day of Culture”, when we mark the birth of France Prešeren, Slovenia’s greatest poet.
The film crew have also documented the making of these miniatures from a different point of view, in order to show the goings-on backstage. You will be able to see preparations and rehearsals and moments from the filming and hear the singers and dancers’ views on the pieces they perform.
Marko Hribernik, the artistic director of the opera company, has announced a new series of miniatures that will be available to view online over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Like the first series, these will be dynamic performances representing a variety of genres so as to satisfy a wide range of musical tastes.
Drama Ljubljana has put together a selection of archive recordings of performances at the theatre as part of the “Drama from Home” programme for 2020/21. These will be available to watch on the first and third Sunday of every month until the end of January. At 8 pm on Sunday, 6 December you will be able to see Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone directed by Eduard Miler with an excellent cast consisting of Nina Ivanišin, Jurij Zrnec, Iva Babić, Nik Škrlec, Saša Pavček, Vanja Plut and Damir Avdić. This will be followed by performances of Goran Vojnović’s Yugoslavia, My Country, Christopher Marlowe’s Edward the Second and Miroslav Krleža’s In Agony.
At 8 pm today, to mark “This Merry Day of Culture”, you can watch a performance from 2010 of the first Slovene production of Ernst Lubitsch’s comedy When I Was Dead directed by Diego de Brea and starring Alojz Svete, Janez Škof, Jernej Šugman, Boris Mihalj in Jože Šalej.
Actors from the Drama company have also begun creating a collection of readings of literary works. These are primarily aimed at the elderly and other vulnerable groups for whom socialising and even seeing other people in the course of their everyday activities has become especially difficult in the present circumstances. The recordings are available here.
Source: opera.si, drama.si
