ZAGREB, January 4, 2020 - The Rijeka City Puppet Theatre celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2020, the year in which it will actively participate in the European Capital of Culture project, with the final celebratory show of the season, "Bomboniera Variete", premiering in July at the Tobogan Children's Festival, the theatre has announced.

"The puppeteers are celebrating their 60th birthday in 2020, the year when our city assumes the title of European Capital of Culture. And our shows are an essential part of the Children's House programme. We will celebrate puppets and puppetry in our theatre," stated the head of Rijeka City Puppet Theatre, Magdalena Lupi Alvir.

"We will be presented with various puppetry forms. Our stories will be inspired by the beginnings of puppetry in Rijeka, the legends and stories from our port city as well as its forested hinterland, the region of Gorski Kotar, urban city scenes," Lupi Alvir pointed out.

The first premiere of the City Puppet Theatre, which will be held in March, is a show for children, "Happy Little House", adapted by Ivana Đula and Milica Sinkauz from an award-winning picture-book of the same name by Karmen Delač-Petko and Dijana Arbanas.

All of this year's premieres in the City Puppet Theatre are a part of the Rijeka 2020 - European Capital of Culture programme.

The Rijeka City Puppet Theatre has premiered 174 shows up to now.

More Rijeka news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, November 12, 2019 - This year's Theatre Night will be held on November 16 in more than 50 towns across Croatia, and the event will feature a rich programme with an additional five theatres participating.

"More and more small communities are joining in every year, and the Croatian diaspora has started showing interest as well, both in staging performances and in hosting our theatre troupes," said Željko Šturlić, director of the Cultural Centre Dubrava from Zagreb.

The project coordinator, Sandra Banić Naumovski of the Children's Theatre Dubrava, said that this year's event would feature performances by both national theatres and small amateur troupes.

The central day of the Theatre Night is November 16, Banić Naumovski said, adding that the first events would take place already on November 15 and the last on November 18.

In some towns, such as Beli Manastir, Šibenik, Bjelovar and Zaprešić, Theatre Night will last more than just one day.

The Theatre Night is held on the third Saturday in November, a week before the winner of the national award for best theatre actor is announced.

More theatre news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, September 16, 2019 - The World Theatre Festival (FSK), which will be taking place at Zagreb's Croatian National Theatre (HNK) on September 25 - October 1, will include three productions by leading European stage directors, which HNK director Dubravka Vrgoč described as the best productions of this year's European and world theatre season.

The three plays are Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves, a production by Les Theatres De La Ville De Luxembourg, stage-directed by Luxembourg actress and theatre director Myriam Muller, An Enemy of the People, a play by the great Nordic writer Henrik Ibsen, stage-directed by prominent German director Thomas Ostermeier, and the project "Nachlass" by the Rimini Protokoll troupe, stage-directed by Stefan Kaegi.

This year's edition of the FSK is the 17th and over the past 16 years the event brought to Zagreb more than 60 major European and world theatre troupes, Vrgoč said.

The three plays are the best of this year's European and world production and are special in the sense that they herald new theatre trends, Vrgoč said.

More news about festivals can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, September 13, 2019 - The Croatian National Theatre (HNK) in Zagreb is launching its new season with four of the best plays by the St. Petersburg theatre as part of the St. Petersburg International Theatre Season Festival which opens on Thursday with a play entitled "Taras" based on Nikolai Gogol's novel "Taras Bulba".

HNK director Dubravka Vrgoč said that this is a unique opportunity for Croatia's public to see what the theatre in that significant Russian city is like and for Russian to be heard in Zagreb's HNK and to see the current trends in Russian theatre.

"We are happy that we can launch the season with a festival, an unusual event because it represents the best of the best from the St. Petersburg theatre season," Vrgoč told a press conference.

The festival's art director Victor Minkov considers that such good cooperation as the one between the HNK and St. Petersburg is rare and that this, the 13th season, presents productions that that city can be proud of.

Russia's ambassador to Croatia Anvar Azimov said that this is yet another page in the development of Russian-Croatian relations and that he is convinced that visitors will enjoy the programmes that have been prepared.

More theatre news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, September 2, 2019 - A theatrical production by the Baltic House Festival Theatre based Nikolai Gogol's "Taras Bulba" will open the 13th St. Petersburg International Theatre Season Festival in the Croatian National Theatre (HNK) on September 13 and will run until September 17, bringing four productions.

Promoting the festival, HNK underscored that the productions will be directed by leading St. Petersburg directors.

The festival presents contemporary art produced in the "northern capital" of Russia and is aimed at motivating an exchange of creativity and strengthening cultural-artistic ties.

An exhibition of photographs by Pavel Franchishin will be presented for the duration of the festival, showing 20 urban landscape works.

The St. Petersburg International Theatre Season Festival was established in 2007 with the aim of strengthening and developing relations between St. Petersburg and theatre centres in various European countries by exchanging ideas and organising important cultural events.

The Festival has since been presented in Prague, Helsinki, Milan, Marseilles, Belgrade, Tallinn and other cities.

More theatre news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

The performance of the opera “Ero the Joker” (Eros S Onoga Svijeta) by Jakov Gotovac, directed by Krešimir Dolenčić, which will be presented by the Croatian National Theatre (HNK) in Zagreb on Tuesday, November 6, will be live-streamed around the world and thus become the first Croatian opera made digitally available in real-time to audiences in Europe and the world, announced the HNK on October 31, 2018.

The live stream of the work considered the highlight of the Croatian repertoire is part of the Opera Vision project of live streaming of performances, which makes the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb join prestigious global institutions such as the Royal Opera House and national operas from the Netherlands, Latvia, Hungary and Sweden.

The project was launched by Opera Europa, the European association of operas and festivals. The platform places particular emphasis on attracting and educating younger audiences who watch performances through mobile applications. The project cooperates with 30 partners from 18 countries: Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Great Britain.

As pointed out by the HNK, since the year 2018 has been proclaimed as the European Year of Cultural Heritage, the national theatre has chosen to present to Europe and the world the legendary opera written in 1935. Viewers from around the world will be able to see the performance directed by Krešimir Dolenčić which has been featured at the stage of the National Theatre for 26 years. The performance will feature soloists Siniša Štork, Dubravka Šeparović, Valentina Fijačko Kobić, Stjepan Franetović, Ljubomir Puškarić, Ana Zebić Kostel, Neven Mrzlečki, and the HNK choir and orchestra. It will be conducted by Josip Šego.

The Opera Vision project also includes a series of activities, so in addition to the live stream of the performance itself, the official YouTube channel will feature short documentaries about the work and the city of Zagreb.

“Although a part of our present audience is composed of pupils and students who attend performances as part of their education, we believe that making recordings of performances available on online services will further encourage young people to develop their interest in opera and to more often come to the Croatian National Theatre,” announced the HNK in a statement.

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“He might push unruliness to extremes, but this is no time for politeness.”

Šerbedžija has admitted to drinking before driving.

Protesters have tried to prevent the actors from performing the play but were taken away by the police.

ZAGREB, April 11, 2018 - The 13th edition of the Croatian Theatre Showcase will be held in Zagreb theatres on April 14-18, featuring a selection of ten plays that foreign curators and theatre critics from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Iran, Kosovo, Poland, Slovenia and Serbia will have an opportunity to see.