Slovenian Chamber Music Theater
23.08.24 > 19:30

With Svadba (Serbian for “Wedding”), composer Ana Sokolović offers us an extraordinary chamber opera for six women’s voices a cappella. Shattering the codes of opera, she evokes with great poetry the vibrant world of a traditional Balkan wedding celebration. The intimate staging plunges us into a profound reflection on the duality of marriage, at once the end of one period of life and the beginning of a new one. The seven scenes in this opera explore the way in which marriage shapes friendships and family relationships.

Milica, the bride, is getting ready surrounded by her five friends in a remote house on the Atlantic coast. On the eve of the wedding, various rituals take place, accompanied by song, dance and games. Throughout the opera, various Slavic myths and folk tales are invoked. We witness the exchanges between these women, marked by joy but tinged with a certain nostalgia. Relations between Milica and Ljubica, her maid of honour, gradually become strained. However, the final scene, which invites us to a beautiful ceremony by the sea, brings some relief.

In a dialogue between tradition and the contemporary world, Ana Sokolović offers us a unique experience. Like the women dancing by the water, her innovative and virtuosic writing takes us to a distant horizon carried by waves of sound. It’s an immersion that invites you on a touching journey that blends tradition and emotion – not to be missed!