IVO RAIĆ’S NATIONAL OPERA PRODUCTIONS (1910 – 1915 – 1919)

From 1910 to 1920 Ivo Raić has staged 52 operas and operettas written by Croatian and European composers. His views on modern theatre staging were first revealed in the overture and the second act of Vatroslav Lisinski’s opera Porin in 1910 when he used movements of the masses (choir) to emphasise the psychological differences between characters and their arias. Equally interesting is his staging of Blagoje Bersa’s opera Oganj (Fire) in 1911, which set the ground for Croatian music modernism and introduced Wagner’s notion of Gesamtkunstwerk on the Zagreb stage, as well as the composers veristic and even expressionistic views. The staging of Ivan Zajc’s opera Prvi grijeh (The Original Sin) in 1912, based on Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević’s biblical parabola, marks the emancipation from the traditional form and the beginning of insight into an integral human personality. The staging of Božidar Širola’s Novela od Stanca (The Tale of Stanac) in 1915 explained the poetic idiom of national opera, announcing both the revitalization of interest in playwright Marin Držić and in the folk melody in realistic and symbolist manner. The similar approach can be detected in the staging of Petar Konjović’s opera Vilin veo (The Fairy’s Veil) in 1917. The staging of Josip Hatze’s opera Povratak (The Homecoming) in 1919, based on Srgjan Tucić’s naturalistic one-act play written in 1898, closes the Raić’s cycle of national opera productions. The selection of European and Croatian composers revealed manifold characteristics of Ivo Raić’s staging model which enriched the Zagreb stage with mature echoes of European artistic tendencies