Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2023 | GoComGo.com

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2023

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April 2024
Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2023

This schedule is not announced yet.
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We’ll notify you as soon as the playbill is available.
Get a 5% early booking discount and access to the best seats - center and front rows - at no extra cost. These premium seats sell out quickly!

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Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2023

Dubrovnik Summer Festival is mostly classic music, dance, theater and folklore festival. Thousands of people, local and tourists pour into town and the demand for accommodation is higher than usual, therefore it is advisable to check hotel prices and make reservations ahead of time. The festival is held, every year, from mid July until the third week of August. It is known as one of the greatest culture events of Croatia.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival is the main event of the year with the participation of world classical music stars.
If you are interested in this schedule leave a request. As soon as the playbill is announced, we will let you know immediately, and you will be the first to get the tickets.

In each section, you will get the best seats for the same price - centrally located and in front rows. 
We provide seats with the best acoustics only.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 6

Even in the world's best concert halls and opera houses, the listening conditions can vary greatly, and some seats are better than others. Sometimes nearby seats have very different viewing and listening conditions.

Usually, these seats are sold out soon and available for early bookers only. We guarantee that you will receive full-view seats only.

Detailed information about the 2023 Festival will be added later. Please read about the previous "Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022":

The 73rd Dubrovnik Summer Festival was closed 25 August with a magnificent Opera Gala in front of the Cathedral on which outstanding opera stars, soprano Adela Zaharia and tenor Filip Filipović performed with the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra under the direction of maestro Ivan Repušić, after which actors and musicians put away the Libertas flag in a short ceremony set to Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D major until the next festival summer.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 1

The Dubrovnik Summer Festival has successfully brought another season to its end, holding a total of 74 drama, music, ballet, folklore, film, art and children's programmes during 47 days, from 10 July to 25 August at 17 site-specific locations in the city of Dubrovnik, as was concluded at the press conference on the occasion of the closing of the Festival held in the Sponza Palace Atrium.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 2

This year's first premiere drama title, staged in July at the new festival location in front of St Jacob’s Church, was one of the most famous 17th century comedies from the 17th century, the so-called smiješnica (a kind of prose comedy) Lovers directed by Aleksandar Švabić and performed by the Festival Drama Ensemble. The culmination of the drama programme was reached in August with the premiere staging of the cult Federico García Lorca tragedy Blood Wedding by director Franka Perković Gamulin, performed by the Festival Drama Ensemble at two locations on the island of Lokrum.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 3

The festival audience also had the opportunity to enjoy three returning plays: Shakespeare's Hamlet directed by Paolo Magelli and performed by the Festival Drama Ensemble, last year's successful premiere play Lion House directed by Aida Bukvić based on the eponymous Ivan Salečić novel, and Mara and Kata by director Saša Božić with performances by Doris Šarić-Kukuljica and Nataša Dangubić, for which extra tickets were sought after this year as well. This year's drama programme also included a guest performance of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb with My Brilliant Friend, a theatre adaptation of the popular novel of the same name by the contemporary Italian writer Elena Ferrante, directed by Marina Pejnović. Their traditional part in the festival programme had the Lero Student Theatre with Ladies’ Park by the director Davor Mojaš, while the youngest festival audience, with the support of the Caboga Stiftung foundation, enjoyed the premiere of the musical-theatre piece The Enchanted Forest directed by Lea Anastazija Fleger, based on the adaptation of the eponymous novel of the beloved Croatian writer Sunčana Škrinjarić, as well as the plays The Story of a Wheel and the Princess and the Pea put on by the Mala scena theatre.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 4

This summer's music programme presented the Dubrovnik audience with top domestic and international names, and it was opened by a concert of the acclaimed Spanish soprano Nuria Rial and the Accademia del Piacere ensemble led by artistic director and author of the programme's concept, Fahmi Alqhai, who performed an early music programme entitled Muera, Cupido and supported by Adriatic Luxury Hotels, introducing the audience to a part of the 18th century Spanish theatre music. An evening dedicated to Croatian music was held by the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra String Chamber Ensemble, with young soloists Franjo Bilić on the harpsichord and Lovro Merčep on the saxophone, under the baton of maestro Ivan Hut, while an unforgettable night coloured by a mix of blues, jazz, funk, R'n'B and soul by world-renowned multi-instrumentalist Cory Henry was set in Gradac Park, sponsored by Mastercard.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 5

The 73rd Festival music programme continued with a concert by one of the best Croatian pianists, Lovro Pogorelić, and his excellent piano recital. A musical journey through the centuries and moods followed, under the title Stories of Love, Hope and Despair, as performed by the Zagreb Quartet with soloists, Žarko Perišić on bassoon and Milan Milošević on clarinet. The Dubrovnik audience was won over by the Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say with his exceptional skill in performing popular Bach variations as well as his own compositions and arrangements, and the same could be said for one of the most respected violinists of his generation, Roman Simović. The ensembles Antiphonus and Concerto dei venti brought all the magnificence of the baroque to the festival audience through a great harmony of voice and instruments, while the marvellous guitarist Miloš Karadaglić delighted all with the Homage to Segovia programme in honour of one of the most important guitarists of the last century, Andrés Torres Segovia.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 10

The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra earned a standing ovation with their performance, sponsored by Kraš, under the impeccable direction of maestro Dawid Runtz and alongside the young soloists Veronika Ćiković on the harp and Lucija Stilinović on the flute. The virtuoso pianist Vadym Kholodenko presented himself to the festival audience with a piano recital, and he also performed with the outstanding violinist Alena Baeva. This summer's music programme at the Rector's Palace was closed by great Dubrovnik musicians gathered in an exciting ensemble with an unusual selection of instruments and distinct personalities under the baton of Tomislav Fačini and with excellent soloists Đive Franetović Kušelj on the flute and mezzo-soprano Dubravka Šeparović Mušović as part of the unique music programme Dubrovnik on a Rock of Music held this year with the support of the Caboga Stiftung foundation.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 7

The traditional festival performances of the Linđo Folklore Ensemble were held on two occasions in Gradac Park to the delight of local and foreign audiences, while ballet lovers enjoyed the magic of the neo-romantic ballet in two acts Pride and Prejudice by director and choreographer Leo Mujić, performed by first-rate ballet dancers of the Ballet of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. A frequent festival guest, the Zagreb Dance Company did the contemporary dance performance REVEL REVEL choreographed by Roser López Espinosa, taking the audience on a journey exploring freedom.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 8

As part of the 73rd Dubrovnik Summer Festival’s art programme, two exhibitions were put on display – Response by the renowned Dubrovnik artist Izvor Pende, whose abstract works were presented in cooperation with the National Museum of Modern Art on two locations, in the Sponza Palace Atrium and in the Lazareti, and a series of multimedia works Rehearsal Room/Space of Appearance and Disappearance in the Diary of an Actor cycle by drama champion Livio Badurina, who returned to the Festival this summer not as an actor, but as a videographer and photographer. This season’s film programme was marked by anniversaries; the documentary film 80 years of Radio Dubrovnik directed by the doyen of Dubrovnik and Croatian journalism Vedran Benić and the Croatian Radio and Television documentary film Time of Aretej which premiered on the fiftieth anniversary of the first performance of the play Aretej at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. The traditional cooperation with the Pula Film Festival continued this year as well, thus the Dubrovnik audience enjoyed the screening of the film The Staffroom by director and screenwriter Sonja Tarokić.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2022, photo 9

The Dubrovnik Summer Festival joined the celebration of the 750th anniversary of the promulgation of the Dubrovnik Statute, the basis of the legal order of the Republic of Dubrovnik, with the special programme Liber Statutorum Civitatis Ragusii performed by Doris Šarić-Kukuljica, Perica Martinović and Nataša Dangubić. The Festival also marked the 75 years of Indian independence with an excellent combination of traditional and modern form of Indian classical music that connects all generations equally as performed by sarod musician Arnab Bhattacharya and Rohen Bose on tabla to the curious festival audience.

About the Dubrovnik Summer Festival

The Dubrovnik Summer Festival is an annually-held summer festival instituted in 1950 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It is held every year between 10 July and 25 August. On more than 70 open-air venues of Renaissance-Baroque city of Dubrovnik a rich programme of classical music, theatre, opera and dance performances is presented. It was at the beginning of the 50s, when there were many theatrical and musical events springing up all over Europe, that the Dubrovnik Summer Festival was founded. However, the idea of harmonizing the renaissance and baroque atmosphere of Dubrovnik and the living spirit of drama and music, actually derived from the intellectual way of life of the city itself, from its living creative tradition, which has bestowed upon Croatian cultural and scholarly history, especially in theatre and literature, many great names and works, and kept it continually in touch with contemporary currents in western Europe.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 1

The works of Marin Držić, Nikola Nalješković, Ivan Gundulić and Ivo Vojnović were to become a mainstay of the drama programme, then, while with the understanding of the idea of the importance of ambience, which is the principal distinguishing feature of the Dubrovnik Festival, the specific theatrical values of the wider Croatian dramatic heritage gradually became revealed, as did the adaptability of the classics of European dramatic art to the squares, palaces, towers and parks of Dubrovnik. Above all Shakespeare, but also Goldoni, the Greek tragedians, Molière, Corneille and Goethe became yardsticks of the traditionalist nature of the festival.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 2

As early as 1952 director Marko Fotez, the prime mover behind the group of enthusiasts who started up the Festival, put on Hamlet at the Lovrjenac Fort, which soon became an ideal setting for this drama known throughout the world. Equally attractive were the performances of Goldoni's Fishermens Quarrels in the old city harbour, renaissance comedies and mystery plays taking place in the city squares (called after Gundulić, Bunić and Držić), Goethe's Iphigenia, staged in Gradac Park by Croatias greatest director Branko Gavella, and Vojnović's The Trilogy of Dubrovnik, an emblematic work about the fall of the Dubrovnik Republic, staged in the authentic rooms of the Rectors Palace, Sponza Palace and Gruž summer residence.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 3

The ambience determined not only the repertoire but also the organization of the Festival, and most of the performances were performed by the Festival Drama Ensemble, composed of the best Croatian actors. There were also guest appearances that enhanced exclusiveness of the event including the Piccolo Teatro from Milan with Strehler's staging of The Servant of Two Masters, the Old Vic with Zefirelli's Romeo and Juliet, the Greek National Theatre from Athens with Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, the Stadttheater from Basel with Dürrenmatt's Play Strindberg, directed by the author, Ronconi's legendary staging of Orlando Furioso, the London Prospect Theatre Company with several productions by Toby Robertson, and the Teatar Stary from Krakow with Wajda's The IdiotHamlet has been played by prestigious actors such as Derek Jacobi and Daniel Day Lewis.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 4

In the early seventies the unconventional dramatic forms were gradually introduced, with groups like the Schumann Bread and Puppet Theatre, the Amsterdam Dogtroep, Els Comediants from Barcelona, the Compagnie Ferrucio Soleri and La Mama Theatre from New York taking part. But the key modernistic excursions of the Festival were still determined by shifts in the posited poetics of the setting, either by including works of contemporary writers like Bond, Brecht or Krleža, or by including new venues on the city map, over forty of them, where, in addition to the best Croatian directors, well known international artists such as Stuart Burge, Denis Carrey, William Gaskill and Jiři Menzel have also worked.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 5

The Festival music programme was initially conceptualised as presentation of the best composers, soloists and orchestras from the country, but by the end of the fifties it had already grown into a real review of top solo artists and ensembles from all around the world. The high standard of performance in Dubrovnik was complemented by functional use of the attractive and acoustic buildings, particularly the Rector's Palace Atrium. In the early seventies special attention was paid to the music and concert programme conception, with larger number of representatives of new currents in music taking part, in addition to those who attempted to breathe new life into the old, especially Croatian, music. Among numerous artists who performed at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, contributing to its prestige worldwide, it is difficult to single out anyone in particular.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 6

For the sake of illustration, when big orchestras are concerned, in addition to regular appearances of the Zagreb Philharmonic, let us mention the Czech Philharmonic, the Halle Orchestra, the French Radio Orchestra, the Suisse Romande Orchestra, the RAI Symphony Orchestra from Turin, philharmonic orchestras from London, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Moscow, Warsaw, St Petersburg, and the Cincinnati Symphony; among chamber and vocal ensembles the Beethoven Quartet, Borodin Quartet and Prokofiev Quartet from Moscow, the Lasalle Quartet and Juilliard Quartet from New York, the Amadeus Quartet from London, the Parrenin Quartet from Paris, the New Vienna Quartet and Alban Berg Quartet from Vienna, the Virtuosi di Roma, the Zagreb Soloists, the Lucerne Festival Strings, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Vienna Boys, the Beaux Arts Trio from New York, the Prague Chamber Orchestra and many others. Among piano soloists taking part were Svyatoslav Richter, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Nikita Magaloff, Van Cliburn, Martha Argerich, Rudolf Firkusny, Alexis Weissenberg, Aldo Ciccolini, Claudio Arrau, Mihail Pletnov and Ivo Pogorelić, flutist James Galway, violinists Henry Szeryng, Leonid Kogan, Isaac Stern, David Oistrakh, Viktor Tretiakov, Zlatko Baloković and Uto Ughi, as well as cellists Rostropovich, Navarra, Janigro and Tortellier. Great singers like Nicolai Gedda and Monserrat Caballe have also performed at the festival, as well as star performers like Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Ravi Shankar.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 7

The history of operatic performances began in 1951, when the Sarajevo Opera made a guest appearance with five of its productions. The period up to 1963 was characteristic of guest appearances mainly of opera houses from the then state, but also of the search for venues suitable for staging of operas. In 1964 the first festival opera production Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea, directed and conducted by Lovro Matačić, was put on in front of the Rector's Palace. However the best way of getting Dubrovnik and the opera together was found in 1971, and chamber operas, mostly comic, have been staged in the atrium of the Rector's Palace since. In addition to the festival performances of works by Monteverdi, Pergolesi, Caldara, Cimarosa, Salieri, Telemann or Galuppi, the practice of having guest opera performances continued, including those by the Opera of the Croatian National Theatre from Zagreb, the Teatro Massimo from Palermo, the Piccolo Teatro Musicale from Rome, the Phoenix Opera from London, and the Moscow Chamber Music Theatre. The Festival's history also notes several exclusive operatic events like the performance of Kelemen's Apocalyptica, or the attempt to reconstruct one of Jarnović's operas, as was the project Abroad and at Home.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 8

Ballet and dance have also been welcome guests at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, which was confirmed by the series of famous names and groups presenting their projects on the terrace of the Revelin Fort. Alongside the best local troupes, choreographers and soloists, Dubrovnik has been visited by Merce Cunningham, Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, Glenn Tetley and Martha Graham and their companies, the Twentieth Century Ballet of Maurice Bejart, the American Ballet Theatre, the London Festival Ballet, the Harkness Ballet, the Antonio Gades troupe, the ballet of the Hungarian State Opera, and ballets from the cities of Parma, Antwerp and Adelaide.

Dubrovnik Summer Festival, photo 9

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