Svadba
Opera by Ana Sokolović
A Boston Lyric Opera production,
co-produced with Opera Philadelphia.
English captions available.
By arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.
WINNER for Artistic Creation
at the 2023 Opera America Awards
for Digital Excellence in Opera
Here’s to love, laughter, and happily ever after! Svadba, a new cinematic opera experience, tells the story of a bride-to-be on the eve of her wedding as four of her closest friends and an elder family member gather to help her prepare for the big event. This chamber opera dramatizes the ritual of preparing for marriage, the importance of preserving tradition, and the true power of friendship and community. Sung completely a cappella, Svadba’s mesmerizing music by Serbian composer Ana Sokolović combines with dance-led visuals from film director Shura Baryshnikov and screenwriter Hannah Shepard. Serbian-born Daniela Candillari conducts the music.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Boston Cultural Council’s Reopen Creative Boston Fund, administered by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture.
Press Release
Please note this synopsis contains spoilers for the film experience.
Svadba poetically explores the traditions and rituals associated with the night before marriage. Milica, the bride, prepares for the wedding day with her five girlfriends, all channeling a range of enthusiastic and anxious emotions into decorations, games, and song. The Storytellers oversee the action, appearing in ceremonies and dreams and speaking across time; the contemporary and ancestral worlds are thus cast in conversation with one another. The seven scenes of the drama are set on a beach and cottage by the Atlantic Ocean, and the water, sky, sand, flowers and creatures all play a part in the physical and spiritual landscape. Invoking Slavic and Balkan folk tales and myth, the scenes carry a mystical charm, but also relay universal cultural themes on how marriage shapes family and friendship.
The women consider the duality of a wedding as both the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another. Milica and her bridesmaids carry sea grass and wildflowers to the cottage to begin decorating, and Handymen arrive to roll out the wedding rug. Lena, the Elder, begins preparing colored henna to dye Milica’s hair, marking the rite of passage. Later, Milica reflects by the shore and sinks into a dream, entering a decorative fairy-tale world with her betrothed.
SVADBA LIBRETTO(PDF 174KB)
English translation by Lydia Perović
Tension builds, blurring the line between lighthearted role-playing and contentious confrontation. Milica’s girlfriends act out a gender-role battle– a fiery call and response game. Ljubica, the maid of honor, begins to stew in earnest jealousy of Milica. Out at the beach, the tension comes to a boil during a standoff between the two women, which the other bridesmaids are keen to mitigate. The striking of the drum leads the bridal party back to the cottage to ready themselves for nighttime.
Milica wades out in the water to bathe, looking up at the stars and returning to her fairy-tale daydream. The Storytellers sing her to sleep. Dawn breaks and the final preparations are underway. Emotions are raw as Milica dresses on the morning of the ceremony. The bridesmaids play ocarinas and percussion to greet the wedding day. Milica and Ljubica embrace and make amends. Finally, all decorations are set. Milica and her betrothed at last greet each other face-to-face in a beautiful ceremony by the shore.
Harbors and Horizons: Gender, Voice, and Ritual in Svadba
Quick: when was the last time you saw an opera with hardly any men in it? In Ana Sokolović’s Svadba, the (virtual) curtain rises on a world which is beyond the male gaze – at least temporarily. It is the eve of a wedding. A bride, Milica, is surrounded by her wedding attendants, a group of friends and relatives. In this production, their actions take place under the watchful, caring eyes of the Ancestors, a group of female storytellers who guide their preparations for the festivities to come. From a cottage perched on land’s limit by the seashore, and on the [...]
The Richness of Svadba: Exploring the Sounds of Serbian Music
Svadba is a piece that has followed me around for quite some time. I was always intrigued by it and was glad when BLO invited me to conduct their production, which is an opera film with dance. And thus, began not only my study and preparation for Svadba, but also familiarizing myself with the folk music of my own country, Serbia. My first memories of Serbian folk music seem very distant, and I believe it was probably something that fell into my ear on a late Sunday afternoon while watching TV when I was about six years old. One thing I [...]
Serbia-born and Quebec-based composer Ana Sokolović has distinguished herself internationally with imaginative, rhythm-driven music, and a repertoire that ranges from critically acclaimed operas and orchestra works to powerful solo and chamber pieces. Her fascination with numerous artforms is evident across a broad range of concert and stage works, and led to prominent collaborations with choreographer Louise Lecavalier, conductor Teodor Currentzis, director Denis Marlot, playwright Stéphanie Jasmin and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Theodore Ushev.
Daniela Candillari has conducted at storied opera houses, and on international concert stages. This season, she makes her Metropolitan Opera debut conducting Aucoin’s Eurydice, leads a new production of Jeanine Tesori’s Blue with Michigan Opera Theatre and workshops Tesori’s Grounded at Washington National Opera and The Met. Additionally, she conducts Fire Shut Up in My Bones at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and leads performances with Music Academy of the West. Candillari’s credits include recent debuts at The Met Museum, LA Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Opera Philadelphia, Saint Louis Symphony, and her regional debut in Hong Kong. As a composer, she has been commissioned by instrumentalists from the Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh symphonies, as well as the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and New York City Ballet. A native of Slovenia, Candillari holds a Doctorate in Musicology from the Universität für Musik in Vienna, a Master of Music in Jazz from Indiana University, and a Master of Music and Bachelor in Piano Performance from the Universität für Musik in Graz.
Shura Baryshnikov (she/her/hers) is a Rhode Island-based multi-disciplinary artist who works broadly as a dancer/actor/improviser, movement educator, director, and choreographer for projects across dance, theatre, opera and film. Svadba is Shura’s third production with Boston Lyric Opera, and her first film project.
Hannah Shepard studied writing at Sarah Lawrence College and received Master’s degrees from the National University of Ireland and Fordham University, where she was a teaching fellow and a winner of the history-centered Loomie Prize.
Katherine Castro is a New York City-based cinematographer who was selected for the American Film Institute’s inaugural “Cinematography Intensive for Women” in Los Angeles. Her work spans narrative, music video, and documentary and has been screened in film festivals including the Indy Film Fest (Indiana), the Woods Hole Film Festival (Massachusetts) and the Asian American International Film Festival (New York City).
Ana Novačić is a scenic designer for film and live performance based in New York. Originally from Yugoslavia, she completed her undergraduate training in Scenography at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, and her MFA in Production Design at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied under some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names.
Albulena Borovci is a Boston-based costume designer and stylist, who was born and raised in the Republic of Kosovo where she started her career at the National Theater of Kosovo. She continued her education at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama in Pittsburgh where she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Costume Design.
Director, actor, and choreographer Jackie Davis joined the Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2020 as Assistant Professor of Theater, and has worked extensively in theater, television, and film. Recently, she was seen as abolitionist Susan Robbins in the film Little Women. Her directing credits include Race, Ruined, and For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Her choreography projects include Dance Nation, Beauty and the Beast, and The Wiz. Notable stage credits include Trinity Repertory Theater’s productions of Black Odyssey (Benevolence), Marisol (Woman in Furs), and A Tale of Two Cities (Jacques One). Additional credits include Lyric Stage Company of Boston’s productions of Saturday Night/Sunday Morning (Jackie), Barbecue (Marie), and SpeakEasy Stage Company’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Siobhan). Davis is the founding artistic director of New Urban Theater Laboratory in Massachusetts, where she has produced and directed five years of new works. Davis is a teaching artist for Trinity Repertory Company’s Education Department, a master teacher for their Young Actors Summer Institute, and a movement instructor for the Brown/Trinity M.F.A. program. She is currently a director/producer for the upcoming web series From a Distance.
Rising artist and dancer Jay Breen (she/they) is a lifelong resident of Providence, who is passionate about using their artistic voice to build and bridge communities. They use dance experience as a means of connecting with others who are passionate about the arts. Breen has been immersed in the world of dance since their youth, learning from industry notables including Canadian choreographer Stacey Tookey, dancer Cindy Salgado, contemporary dancer Teddy Forance, hip hop choreographer and dancer Dana Wilson, French movement specialist Alexandra Damiani, Mijo, American choreographer Martha Nichols, and a number of other well-respected artists and educators.
Originally from Southern California, performer Sarah Pacheco graduated with a B.A. in Dance and Business Administration with a Concentration in Arts Administration from Goucher College, where she danced for the Goucher Repertory Dance Ensemble and performed in works by Sidra Bell, Adam Hougland and Ronen Koresh, among others. She was also an intern for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Upon graduating, Pacheco moved to New York City where she performed with several freelance groups, including Kins Dance Theater and BIRDHOUSE New York. She worked as a Community Actionist for Gibney Dance’s youth program “Hands Are For Holding” and became a certified GYROTONIC® Apprentice Teacher. Pacheco now resides in Boston, serving as the Experiential Lead at lululemon Newbury and an artist and rehearsal director forIN THE SPACE BETWEEN with VLA DANCE.
Boston-based dancer Emily Jerant-Hendrickson’s professional performance credits include works by and with Sidra Bell, Itzik Galili, Jenna Pollack, little house dance company, David Parker and the Bang Group, Lorraine Chapman the Company, and Reciprocity Collaborative. Emily has performed with the Ailey Citigroup Theater, the Martha Graham Theater, World Music/CRASH arts, The Yard, Soaking WET, APAP at City Center NYC, Six Degrees of Separation NYC, the Cape Dance Festival, Boston Center for the Arts, and Southern Vermont Dance Festival, among others. In addition to performing, Jerant-Hendrickson has worked as a rehearsal director for little house dance, Jenna Pollack, and CoGRAVITY Dance. She graduated from the Ballet Arts Centre in 2012 and holds a BFA in dance from the Boston Conservatory.
Boston dancer Sasha Peterson completed a dance major at Connecticut College in 2016, where she learned from and performed works by renowned dance faculty members and guest artists. Peterson has danced with Ali Kenner Brodsky & Co., Betsy Miller Dance Projects, Jessy Zizzo & Dancers, and Lisa Race. She has also apprenticed at David Dorfman Dance and is a company member at Grant Jacoby & Dancers, Ruckus Dance, and VLA DANCE. Peterson currently teaches at the grassroots dance initiative Midday Movement Series and is a licensed massage therapist.
Olivia Moon is a Boston-based, multidisciplinary artist specializing in photography, videography, dance, and pole dance. Across all mediums, Moon borrows aspects of her personal identity as a queer, female-identifying, Asian-American woman to highlight underrepresented voices in her communities. Born in Connecticut and raised in Los Angeles where she studied dance at The Vonder Haar Center for the Performing Arts, Moon returned to the East Coast to attend high school at Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, Mass. She trained with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Joffrey Ballet School, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. She graduated from Boston University with a BS in Health Sciences and opened the studio Olivia Moon Photography/halfasianlens. Moon currently dances with KAIROS Dance Theater, VLA Dance, and various independent projects.For press images, please visit
Svadba Media Kit
“Gritty music, strong and assertive throughout, [with] moments of visual beauty…it creates a world of its own.”
– Boston Musical Intelligncer, 1/30/2022
“Universal and timeless…a freshly conceived film version.”
“Sophisticated, heady and attractive…Svadba pushes the envelope of opera as film.”
“Masterfully conducted…[composer] Sokolović conjure[s] moments redolent with magic and mystery.”
“Transition[s] effortlessly from playful to serious to thoughtful..”
“Victoria Awkward [is] a gentle, radiant presence, beautifully capturing the bride-to-be’s sense of wonder and anticipation”
“Captures the intense feelings of friendship and wonder.”
-Musical America, 1/28/2022
“…scene after luminous scene of dancing”
–Yahoo News, 1/28/2022
“Really extraordinary…a cinematic experience! Shura Baryshnikov does something really clever here.”
– WGBH Morning Edition, Arts This Week w/ Jared Bowen, 1/27/2022
“Creatively re-imagined! A virtuoso tour-de-force!”
“Svadba” communicates directly, emotionally and viscerally
– Opera Today, 1/25/2022
Production Photos from the Film
Vocalists + Creative
Behind-the-Scenes Production Photos
Season artwork created by Myung Hee Cho.
Images:
- Ana Sokolovic | Composer, Svadba, Boston Lyric Opera, 2022: Raoul Manuel Schnell
- Sasha Petersen, Dancer (Bridesmaid) in Boston Lyric Opera’s 2022 production of Svadba: Victoria Awkward