15.02.2013
This year’s Prešeren Award Ceremony
Among this year's recipients of the highest Slovenian award for achievements in the field of culture are three opera singers.
The ceremony, which took place on Thursday, 7 February at 8 p.m. in Cankarjev dom's Gallus Hall was designed by director Ivana Djilas. The highlight of the ceremony was the awarding of six Prešeren Fund Awards and two Grand Prešeren Awards. According to the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, this event "is intended to show what happens when 25 special creators and artists come together. Everything is in place to honour culture, the recipients of the award, the artists, and the best among us in 2012".
Among this year's recipients of the award were mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink and bass-baritone Marcos Fink for the CD Slovenija! and a series of concerts throughout Slovenia and baritone Jože Vidic for the role of Gruden in Golob's opera Love Capital and the role of Lorenzo in Kogoj's opera Black Masks.
Marij Kogoj's (1892-1956) only opera Black Masks, which is considered as one of the central works of the national operatic heritage, was composed between 1924 and 1927 and stands out as the only Slovene expressionist masterpiece composed in the first half of the 20th century. Slovene musicologists and conductors testify to the high quality of Kogoj's opera, which can be compared to other international modernist works by composers such as Richard Strauss, Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg, under whom Kogoj studied composition during the First World War. In his operatic accomplishement, Kogoj utilised different modernistic compositional techniques such as the expressionist vocal technique Sprechgesang (spoken singing) and free chromaticism among others.
This seldomly-performed opera premiered in Ljubljana in 1929 and was also put on stage in 1957 and 1990. A studio recording of the opera under the direction of Anton Nanut was carried out in 1970. A new production of Black Masks, conducted by Uroš Lajovic and directed by Janez Burger, was presented at the premiere week of last year's European Capital of Culture – Maribor 2012. With this new rendition of Black Masks, by Uroš Lajovic, a publishing milestone has been crossed. This music score, Published last year by the Society of Slovene Composers, has become the first publication of this important work.
