Famous Croats

Srebrenka (Sena) Jurinac (Travnik, 24 October 1921 – Augsburg, 22 November 2011), a soprano diva, a great Croatian vocal artist, joins the few special Croatian female singers who have conquered the most prestigious world opera stages.

She went to school in Zagreb and studied singing at the Academy of Music in Zagreb under Marija Kostrenčić. Even during her studies, she performed at the Croatian National Theater, attracting attention with the beauty of her refined musicality. She distinguished herself in several roles, with a special emphasis on her main role at the premiere of Boris Papandopulo’s opera “Sunčanica” held in 1942, under the composer’s conducting and directed by Branko Gavella. A year later, Oktavijan Miletić entrusted her with the role of Sidonija Erdődy in his film Lisinski. In 1944, she successfully auditioned at the Vienna State Opera, where she remained until her retirement in 1982. Not only did she portray many roles but she also built an international career that took her from Vienna to major opera stages worldwide. She performed at La Scala in Milan, the Paris Opera, Covent Garden in London, opera houses in Brussels, Zurich, as well as in San Francisco, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Sydney and at festivals in Edinburgh, Glyndebourne (regularly from 1949), Florence (Maggio musicale), the Bayreuth Festival (1957) and Wiesbaden.

In her home theater, she interpreted the majority of soprano roles, gradually transitioning from lyric to dramatic roles. Throughout her career, she collaborated with the greatest conductors of the 20th century, from L. Matačić and H. von Karajan, under whose baton she performed at the Salzburg Festival in the role of Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro by W. A. Mozart, to W. Furtwängler, O. Klemper, H. Knappertsbusch and E. Kleiber.

Croatian audiences surely remember her last magnificent performance in Croatia when, in 1978, at the Varaždin Baroque Evenings, accompanied by Zagreb Soloists, she performed an aria from the opera Julius Caesar by G. F. Händel, leaving an indelible mark.

Milko Kelemen (Podravska Slatina, 30 March 1924 – Stuttgart, 8 March 2018) the composer whose oeuvre today serves as a paradigm for the modernity of Croatian music in the second half of the 20th century. He was a doyen of Croatian musical creativity, the recipient of numerous recognitions and awards, both in Croatia and in Germany, which had been his second home since the early 1970s.

He completed his primary and secondary education in Virovitica and in 1951, he studied composition under S. Šulek at the Academy of Music in Zagreb. He took additional studies in Paris, Freiburg and Munich. Since 1953, he was an assistant and later a lecturer at the Academy of Music in Zagreb. From 1968 to 1970 he was a Composer in Residence in Berlin. From 1969 to 1972, he taught at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Düsseldorf. Since 1973, he was a professor of composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. He was the founder and first president of the Music Biennale Zagreb, an international festival of contemporary music (1961). He also served as the honorary president from 1981 until his passing. He guest-conducted and taught as a visiting professor in numerous countries worldwide. In 1988, he was elected as a corresponding member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU). In 1995, the Milko Kelemen Days were established in Slatina as an annual event. Kelemen’s numerous awards include the three City of Zagreb Awards (1955, 1957, 1960), the Beethoven Prize of the City of Bonn (1961), the Bernhard SprengelAward in Hannover (1969), the Grosses Bundesverdienstkreuz for Cultural Achievements of the Federal Republic of Germany (1973), the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of the Republic of France (1980) and the Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award (1984).

Kelemen writes in his book Svjetovi zvuka [Worlds of Sound]: “Energy in music should be understood as an applied rather than a pure concept, which manifests in various forms depending on the different assumptions of different types of musical expression. The law of conservation of energy is inherent in music.” Accustomed to the inspiring rendition of the law of energy in music in the works of this author, we sometimes identify the playful character of certain aspects of his manuscript with energy. Therefore, a part of Kelemen’s creativity that demonstrates the rigidity of notation often confuses with the tranquil seriousness of the notation and the utterly controlled, almost subdued energy of each of his compositions.

Vladimir Ruždjak, baritone, composer and opera director (Zagreb, 21 September 1922 – Zagreb, 9 October 1987) is one of the greatest Croatian composers of the 20th century.

He graduated from the Academy of Music in Zagreb in 1946, majoring in solo singing in the class of prof. Milan Reizer. He was the first post-war graduate of that department.

On 4 July 1946, he made his debut at the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb in Gianni Schicchi by G. Puccini. From 1948 to 1955, he was permanently engaged at the Croatian National Theater as a soloist in the opera.

In 1948, he won the Yugoslav Competition of Musical Artists in Zagreb, in 1949, he won the Geneva International Singing Competition, and in 1950, he won the 1st prize at the International Singing Competition in Verviers, Belgium.

On 14 November 1954, he made his debut in Hamburg in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. From 1954 to 1972, he was the leading opera singer in Hamburg, where he performed numerous leading roles and participated in several world premieres. At the same time, he performed as a guest artist on numerous major opera stages worldwide (San Francisco Opera, Sadler’s Wells Opera, Covent Garden Opera in London, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, etc.). From 1962 to 1964, he was a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was also a regular guest at the Croatian National Theater Opera in Zagreb and performed on numerous concert stages in his country and abroad, developing a career as a concert singer. He performed around a hundred opera roles and had an extensive concert repertoire.

For his rich international artistic activity, he was awarded the honorary title of Kammersänger on 21 August 1962.

In the mid-1960s, he decided to add directing to his activities in composition and performance. Over the following years, he had around twenty opera productions.

In 1970, he began his pedagogical work. As a full professor at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, he trained many high-quality singers.

Whichever artistic activity he pursued, he always put his whole heart into it because the artistic act always involved a complete intellectual and emotional engagement. The need for synthesis, for finding a focus where all his aesthetic and moral principles would converge, was essential. He learned with ease and kept high performance standards. His beautiful baritone voice formed the basis for his exceptional technical skill and musicality, shining brightest in concerts and solo performances, where he dedicated much of his compositional work. In his compositions, he increasingly relied on folk sources.

Erika Krpan, musicologist and a member
of the Croatian Composers’ Society