We made a radical change to bring the event, previously dependent on state funding, to the market, which has been generating up to 50 percent of its own revenue since 2002, and that is certainly a success.
Interviewed by Jelena Gotovac/Photographed by Dražen Lapić
The Dubrovnik Summer Games, as the oldest European and domestic music and stage event, celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, and this year, Mr. Ivica Prlender has been elected as its director for the third time. Since childhood, under the guidance of the esteemed Stjepan Haklič and Mišo Račić, he has been connected to the organization of this festival event. He is a university professor at the Department of History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, a prominent researcher of the history of Southeast Europe and the history of Dubrovnik, and on the other hand, an editor of numerous cultural journals, a croatist, a set designer, a producer, and for the last eight years, the director of the venerable Games. He considers his participation in the creation of this cultural institution of the city under Srđ to be the cornerstone of his artistic work. Therefore, we spoke with Director Prlender about the central theme of this year’s Games program, and we were also interested in whether the Games have survived a long-standing creative crisis, whether he is bothered by criticism and comparisons with the Split Summer, whether cultural workers or entertainers are engaged in culture, and whether politics interferes in his business.
History of the Games
The Dubrovnik Summer Games, as the gentlemen in the City claim, were conceived on thirteen September nights in 1950, during which a real city transformed into an imaginary City. Just a decade later, the French writer Claude Aveline, who participated in the Games, would write that he had no idea he was participating in the birth of one of the most famous festivals of our era. In the merging of Baroque and Renaissance Dubrovnik, from the very beginning, the works of Marin Držić, Nikola Nalješković, Ivan Gundulić, and Ivo Vojnović became the backbone of the dramatic program.
• You were unanimously elected as director again this year, but some cultural workers sharply criticize the concept of the Games and your collaborators as politically engaged cultural workers.
– First of all, the ethics of the Games is that they are free from any political option, and personally, I have not been engaged by any option because I do not belong to any. I was appointed due to my professional references, which is probably supported by my eight-year mandate. On the other hand, the Games were a loss before my arrival, and the sustainability of the Festival was questioned. We made a radical change to bring the event, previously dependent on state funding, to the market, which has been generating up to 50% of its own revenue since 2002. Praise from professional critics for the awarded festival performances in the last five years is pleasing to us, but it also drives us to achieve a better program year after year. Poor criticism from potential contenders for the leading position of the Games is rooted in their personal jealousy, but that is a completely legitimate emotion, albeit not important enough for me to comment on.
• Do the Games offer a better cultural-artistic program or do they survive on old glory?
– We continuously nurture the old glory, striving to create various artistic manifestations within the oldest Festival, and in this case, the engagement of Jelčić and Juvančić at the same festival is a wealth and diversity because the Games are not a specialized event like Zagreb’s Eurokaz, but the essence of the best and most diverse performances from the fields of music, drama, and dance, and historical periods. This year, the repertoire includes the premiere of Tomislav Zajec’s play ‘Saved’, then Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’ will be presented from the perspective of the local view of the recession, Držić’s ‘The Assembly’, Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, and Vojnović’s play ‘On the Terrace’. The music part emphasizes classical performances of domestic and foreign hits, and in collaboration with the Pula Film Festival, the best films from its national program this year will be shown.
