About
The Croatian bass Slavko Sekulić received his early musical training at the Central Music School. Three years after the entrance examination at the Conservatory "Giuseppe Tartini" in Trieste (Italy) he graduated in singing with prof. Rita Susovski. During the last academic year he received the "best student of the year" award by the Italian Ministry of Education. He then completed his training at the Academy of Musical Art "Ino Mirković" in Croatia, and at the State Conservatory "Komitas" in Armenia. His solo career began in his home city Rijeka at the Croatian National Theatre "Ivan pl. Zajc" with the role of the High priest in Verdi's Nabucco. At the time, he was a guest soloist at La Monnaie in Brussels, at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Charleroi, at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, and the Teatro Romano "Volterra" in Pisa.
Sekulić opened the 2013-2014 season at the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka as Suleiman the Magnificent in opera Nikola Šubić Zrinjski by Ivan Zajc, and then debuted as Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust. In the season 2012/2013, he appeared as Sparafucile in Dieter Kaegi's new production of Rigoletto at the Slovenian National Theatre Maribor, where he was a member between 2009 and 2011. During his time in Maribor he sang several bass roles, such as Padre Guardiano in Verdi’s La forza del destino, Colline in Puccini’s La bohème, Timur in Turandot, Frère Laurent in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and the bass part in Verdi's Requiem. In 2012 he gave his debut performance at the National Theatre Belgrade as Ferrando in Verdi’s Il Trovatore and returned there for a gala concert as Grande Inquisitore in Don Carlo in April 2013. Among other roles that he performed in Belgrade were Sparafucile, Ramfis, Colline and Daland.
In previous seasons Sekulić was also a member of the opera ensemble at the Slovenian National Theatre Ljubljana where he sang Gottfried in Jacques Offenbach's Les fées du Rhin (world premiere), Selim in Il Turco in Italia, Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, Colline in La bohème, Gremin in Eugene Onegin, Tschelio in The Love for Three Oranges and the title role in Massenet's Don Quichotte. During his time in Ljubljana he performed at the Festspielhaus St. Pölten, Theater Winterthur and the Theater of Bolzano (as Gottfried in Les fées du Rhin) and the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, where he collaborated with internationally known artists such as Sondra Radvanovsky and Ferruccio Furlanetto. Among his stage creations, one can find the roles of Jacopo Fieschi in Simone Boccanegra, Sir Raleigh in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, Maggiordomo in Puccini's La Rondine (staged by Graham Vick). Under the direction of Lorenzo Fratini he also sang in Bach's Magnificat and Te Deum by Charpentier.
Sekulić also participated in numerous concerts in Slovenia, Italy, Germany, and Belgium. He was a guest at many festivals such as the Festival di Castrocaro, Aqulea Festival, Festival di Castello Miramare in Trieste, and music evenings in Lubenice. He worked with renowned conductors such as Loris Voltolini, Dieter Rossberg, Vladimir Kožuhar, Bruno Campanella, Steven Mercurio, Stefano Ranzani, Lorenzo Fratini, Peter Feranec, Uroš Lajovic, Marko Letonja, and directors such as Graham Vick, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Fabio Bellotto, Vito Taufer, Manfred Schweigkofler, and Janusz Kica.