Last concert saved by star Maestro Dario Salvi and young Luka Ljubas
Dario Salvi and soloist Luka Ljubas with the Zagreb Philharmonic. Photo credit: Marko Pletikosa.
Zagreb Philharmonic | Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, Zagreb
May 31 & June 1, 2019
ZAGREB PHILHARMONIC Changed program - unconventional but successful performance on Saturday in Lisinski.
The last concert was saved by star maestro Dario Salvi and young Luka Ljubas.
Instead of announced maestro Dmitrij Kirajenko in the grand final of the season of the Zagreb Philharmonic, on May 31st the Anglo-Italian conductor Dario Salvi was in charge of the orchestra with a changed program; but not the complete orchestra, because the rest of the orchestra was, on the same evening circa 200 metres away, beside the Fountains, performing a concert with singer Miroslav Škoro and one thousand tambura players.
This also probably lead to changes, and to the confusion with the evening programme. One Mozart symphony was written (#41) but another was performed (#40); however all in the Lisinski Hall this evening was good and fun, or rather unusual, because if you were trying to find a more picturesque conductor than Salvi, it will be hard to find.
Slim, and from the audience seemed very tall, the conductor is certainly the most astonishing phenomenon that has emerged recently with us. A real ballet master of the conductor's baton, with big gestures, very expressive, sometimes with theatrical mimicry in communication with the orchestra, he was excellent in transferring his ideas to the orchestra. And these ideas were clearly dictated by his own taste, but also closely to the taste of the audience.
TOP TECHNIQUE - The conductor was the real star of the evening, if we don't count our young 23-year-old violinist Luka Ljubas, who fascinated the whole audience with virtousity in the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso op.28 from Camille Saint Saens. Born and trained in Vienna, from a Croatian-Japanese family, young Ljubas is well known to the Zagreb audience, with several performances of Brahms and Tchaikovsky violin concerts. He is already gaining fast popularity in the world, and a place is waiting for him at the prestigious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He plays with top technique on the Guadanini (1783-85) instrument, which he has on the permanent loan from the Beare's International Violin Society; a real recognition of his talent.
Salvi and Ljubas made a great interpretation, with tempi and dynamics, of the short but demanding piece, while the rest of the program belongs to the picturesque conductor, who is beside that a musicologist and researcher of unknown and rare music of old and neglected composers, operettas and more than that. This was evident in the first contemporary performace of 'Romilda & Constanza' overture, by once well-known and today neglected opera master Giacomo Meyerbeer, as well as the great overture 'Mozart' from Franz von Suppe – a real firework of the master's opera themes and motives.
GENERAL SATISFACTION - There were three movements from the known repertoire piece The Midsummer Night's Dream from Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and at the end instead of the announced Mozart Symphony Jupiter, Symphony G minor, KV 550, was performed.
Dario Salvi maybe doesn't belong to the declared conducting champions, but his conductor's ear is sharp, gestures ample but correct, the taste properly variegated, collaboration with the orchestra fun, and the result excellent. And an all-round pleasure; to the audience in the Lisinski hall and to the audience for Škoro by the Fountains!
Written by Jagoda Martinčević for Jutarnji list (in Croatian) →
Programme
Meyerbeer: Romilda & Constanza, overture
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, op. 61 – Intermezzo, Notturno, Dance of the Clowns
Saint Saens: Introduction & Rondo capriccioso, op. 28
***
Suppe: Mozart overture
Mozart: Symphony No. 40, K. 550