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     PERFORMANCE REVIEW
   
Children, an opera in seventeen songs, with music by Irena Popović, based on
        the novel by Milena Marković. Belgrade, National Theatre, October 8, 2022.

        

    Sofija Perović
    


    Sound Stage Screen, Vol. 2, Issue 2 (Fall 2022), pp. 161–66, ISSN 2784-8949. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. © 2022 Sofija Perović. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54103/sss19975.




    Children
    is an opera in seventeen songs composed and staged by Irena Popović. The
    libretto, based on the award-winning novel/poem of the same name by Milena
    Marković, was written by dramaturg and playwright Dimitrije Кokanov (who
    ventured for the first time into the world of operatic librettos), while
    the choreography was created by Igor Koruga, the scenography by Miraš
    Vuksanović, the costumes by Selena Orb, and the musical dramaturgy by
    Jelena Novak. The structure of the opera resembles a soundtrack where each
    song could be listened and performed independently but, when put together,
    these seventeen “songs” create a coherent theatrical work which made quite
    an impact on the local audience in Belgrade, Serbia. The work consists of a
    prologue and three parts: “The Skyscraper Forest,” “Sea of Tears, Mother’s
    Milk and Children’s Urine,” and “The Wind” in which the topics—such as
    growing up in the blocks of New Belgrade, a complicated relationship with
    the mother, teenage pregnancy, the search of identity in a no-longer
    existing country—are brought up.



    Children
    had its world premiere on October 8, 2022, on the main stage of the
    National Theatre in Belgrade, the institution that hosts opera and ballet
    productions in the Serbian capital since the nineteenth century, with the
opera ensemble being officially formed in 1919.    [1]
    Even though the opening of an independent opera house has been the main
    focus of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia (and formerly
    Yugoslavia) for almost half a century, with every other government
    promising to prioritize the construction of the opera house, Belgrade still
    does not have one. The fact that this brand new chamber opera, composed and
    staged by a contemporary Serbian composer such as Irena Popović, opened the
    National theatre season 2022/2023 brings a ray of light and hope for the
    future of opera in Serbia. This is also the first time that the National
    theatre in Belgrade produced a contemporary opera based on a present-day
    novel. The attention that was accorded to the creation of this opera in the
    media and the public is without precedent. Probably, the main reason lies
    in the work of Milena Marković (1974), a dramatic author and poet whose
    book Children won the most prestigious literary award in Serbia
    (NIN award) for best novel in 2021. This choice made by the jury was, to
    say the least, surprising, since Children is not really a novel –
    it is a poem – and giving an award for the best novel to a book that
    doesn’t strictly belong to this genre was a very bold and unexpected move.
    But no matter how controversial and certainly unprecedent this choice might
    seem, the reactions of the general public and literary circles were
    unanimously positive.


		 

		


		 


    Fig. 1 and 2. Children by Irena Popović, National Theatre in
    Belgrade, 2022, © National Theatre in Belgrade.



    In Children, the voice in all its meanings and forms is
    predominant. The composer, who is also the stage director, rethinks voice
    as a tool, in opera and on stage, by juxtaposing operatic and regular
    singing. By means of the voice (and of being vocal), the very idea and
    notion of expressing oneself freely, truly, and completely despite the
    restrictions imposed by internal and external factors—such as a
    conservative upbringing, social expectations, traditional concepts of
    gender roles, among others—are also questioned in this operatic piece. In
    the patriarchal society, such as the Balkan one, the children’s voices are
    united with the female voices which are altogether often neglected,
    considered as second grade, misunderstood, regarded as not serious enough,
    not important and, even when expressed, not taken into consideration. In
    her book, Milena Marković tries to represent all those voices through the
    prism of autofiction and her own growing up in former Yugoslavia. Although
    at the first glance it might seem like an inner quest, a search for the
    lost childhood, the poem is much more than that. As writer Miljenko
    Jergović said: “It is a dangerous novel about history, the most important
    and traumatic one for us, which starts with the Second World War, continues
    through the eighties, the decade of our growing up, and overruns us during
the nineties.”    [2] The
    collective aspect of this poem is emphasized and made obvious in the opera
    where the author(’s voice) is “represented” by fourteen actors, three
    singers, and the choir. Irena Popović took direct inspiration for this
    collective aspect of the opera from Marković’s novel: “In the music I
    composed for Children, I tried to find the tone of the collective
    voice, i.e. Milena’s being. The complexity of Milena’s poetry and its many
    layers allowed me to make this collective voice both operatic and ordinary,
childlike and also perfect in its imperfect tone. The voices in    Children are a unique combination of things that cannot be
    combined, and it seems to me that we get an overtone that floats through
    spaces and simply refuses to be defined and caught in the trap of classical
analysis.”    [3]



    Although Marković examines the specific issues related to the generations
    that grew up in former Yugoslavia (the country that became a sort of
    Neverland for many) and that, because of the historical events in their
    country, were not able to become independent adults—they could not find
    their ways in the war and the transition stricken newly formed countries;
    they couldn’t manage to get the jobs which would enable them to leave their
    parent’s houses and have enough means to create and provide for their own
    families; and they got stuck in a sort of Peter Pan complex, not being able
    to accept their own responsibilities—this poem is much more universal. It
    talks about finding one’s voice(s), about accepting the fact that we all
    have contradictory voices and feelings within us, that it is absolutely
    fine not knowing what we want or how we feel, that it is alright not to
    feel as we thought we would or as we were taught we should, that growing up
    is a hard thing to do and that we are allowed to feel overwhelmed by it.



    This is a work whose belonging to the operatic genre is questioned by many
    professionals from the opera world in Serbia. It was created mostly by the
members of the dramatic ensemble of the National theatre,    [4] it
    was inspired by the novel which is not a novel, and the result was a
    cathartic theatre piece that brought the audience to tears. This work is
    not what a regular opera lover in Serbia would expect (or want) to see. In
    order to understand the importance of this work one should know that the
    opera scene in Serbia is still very conservative, that opera is often
    mistaken with bel canto, that Serbian audiences have very few
    opportunities to see new stagings and even fewer new operatic works (and
    when that happens it goes almost unnoticed, since the media is not paying
    any interest to such endeavors), that the repertoire of the opera ensemble
    at the National theatre is very limited (based mostly on Italian romantic
    works), and almost all the productions were created decades ago and return
    each season. In such circumstances, the fact that Children was
    given the main stage of the National theatre instead of the smaller one,
    and the opportunity to open not just the opera but the full 2022/23 theater
    season, can be considered as an important step forward. However, this work
    is not only relevant and special for the local scene (despite being sung in
    Serbian), but it is a powerful and original theatrical piece that is even
    questioning the status of opera today in the much broader sense.



    As a composer, Irena Popović is famous for her applied music and work in
    theater, and she is consciously and intentionally mixing the voices of the
    actors with those of the opera singers. She questions the very essence of
    opera by using “ordinary” voices, children’s voices, voices of the
    orchestra players (who are on stage behind the actors and singers, visible
    to the audience at all times and actively involved in the staging), and by
    mixing many musical genres including musical theater, pop music,
    turbo-folk, and World music.



    Popović’s musical language, already well known in Serbia, is easily
    recognizable in this work and, despite being a mixture of many influences
and genres,    [5] in
    the end it feels like easy-listening music. The power and force of the
    human voice on stage, and the importance of internal voices in each human
    being, are represented in this opera by emphasizing the communal aspect of
    singing—in the primal sense of coming together to sing. The teamwork is one
    of the most striking elements of this piece—a collaboration between actors,
    singers, and musicians all involved in each aspect of the work. A very
    special contribution is made by the children’s choir called “Hopes,” which
    brings together children coming from the “margins” of society, thus
    providing an extra aura of innocence and authenticity to this opera both
    musically and theatrically.



    The opera, as well as Milena Marković’s poem, invites us to look deep in
    ourselves and search for the inner child hidden inside. Children
    is an anti-opera that brings hope for the future of the genre in Belgrade
    and can be recommended to contemporary opera lovers all over the world.



    

    

    
        
            
                [1]
            
              For more information about the history of opera in Belgrade,
            please see Raško Jovanović, Olga Milanović, Zoran Jovanović, eds.,
            125 godina Narodnog pozorišta u Beogradu (Belgrade: SANU, 1997);
            Mirka Pavlović, „75 godina od institucionalizovanja Opere (i
            Baleta) (1919–1994),” Pro Musica 154–55 (1995): 14; Sofija Perović,
            “L’Opéra de Belgrade (1992–2000),” in Caroline Giron-Panel, Solveig
            Serre, eds., Les lieux de l’opéra en Europe (xviie–xxie
            siècle) (Paris: Ecole des chartes, 2017), 43–50.
        

    

    
        
            
                [2]
            
              “To je opasan roman o istoriji, onoj nama najvažnijoj i
            traumatičnoj, koja poteče sa Drugim svetskim ratom, nastavi se kroz
            osamdesete, ta decenija našeg odrastanja i pregazi nas tokom
            devedesetih,” quoted in Tanjug, “Premijera kamerne opere Deca u
            Narodnom pozorištu: Spoj muzike, drame i poezije za otvaranje
            sezone,” Euronews Serbia, October 8, 2022.

    

    
        
            
                [3]
            
              Irena Popović as quoted in “Children—Composer’s and Director’s
            Note (Extract),” National Theatre, Belgrade, official website,
            accessed December 18, 2022.
        

    

    
        
            
                [4]
            
              Despite the fact that it is described as an opera in seventeen
            songs, on the official website of the National theatre in Belgrade,
            Children is labeled as “drama.” See “Performances,” National
            Theatre, Belgrade, official website, accessed December 18, 2022.
        

    

    
        
            
                [5]
            
              In the musical style of Irena Popović, Jelena Novak has
            recognized the influence of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt,
            Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson, and David Lang (see Children,
            program notes, National Theatre, Belgrade, 2022, 26).
        

    

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    




                

                

            

                

            

          
          
        
        
        
