Ivan Zajc, Nikola Šubić Zrinski (1876)

Never thought I'd see another Croatian opera, but with Operavision, all things are possible. This is my religious credo. According to wikipedia, Zajc "is often called the Croatian Verdi." Is he, wikipedia? Is he REALLY? Is he "often" called anything, at least outside of his home country? Hmm. Well. Be that as it may, he wrote a bunch of operas, of which this seems to be considered the best.

So here's what happened in 1566: Ottoman forces led by Suleiman the Magnificent wanted to invade Vienna, but first they had to get through a fortress in Hungary called Szigeth. And to do that, they had to get past a force of Croatians commanded by Zrinski (it's not quite clear to me why you had Croatians fighting in Hungary, but apparently these events are celebrated in both countries). They were badly outnumbered, but they managed to hold off the Ottomans for over a month; Suleiman himself died, albeit of natural causes (well, presumably stress-induced also, but still, a bit anti-climactic); the Ottomans won the final battle and Zrinski was killed, but it was a Phyrric victory, and they turned back without reaching Vienna.

It's certainly an irresistable subject for a patriotic opera. This is kind of what you'd expect: a lot of boilerplate about the unstoppable Croatian spirit, which doesn't exactly speak to me in itself; nonetheless, there are some very rousing choruses here that make me want to shout CROATIA FUCK YEAH! I enjoyed this quite a bit more than Ero the Joker,the other Croatian opera I've seen. The singing was maybe not quite world-class, but it seemed better to me (although in both of them, the really obvious microphones the singers are wearing distract). This actually features two singers in common with that one: Stjepan Franetović, who played the title role in Ero, as Suleiman's second-in-command; and Ljubomir Pušarić (whom I singled out for lukewarm praise in Ero) as the title role here. They both seem better to me, somehow. Maybe it's just a better opera. It is kind of notable that the singer playing Zrinski's wife is extremely blatantly younger than the one playing his daughter, but what the hey!

One weird, notable thing is that, per wikipedia, the rousing climactic chorus--which apparently remains popular in Croatia--is also a fixture of Japanese glee clubs.  You can read all about it in an article entitled "Jedan odlomak iz povijesti suradnje Japana i Hrvatske: Hrvatska pjesma "U boj" i japanski muški zbor," or "An Episode from the History of Cooperation Between Japan and Croatia: Croatian Song "U Boj" and Japanese Male Choirs."  How many episodes are there, do you think?

The Croatian Verdi? Well, I don't know about that. I was more reminded of Rimsky-Korsakov, especially in the lengthy dance sequence that opens the second act. But that is NO. BAD. THING. I'd be happy to see more of his work should the chance arise. This is what Operavision is good for. The standard-repertoire stuff they put on is all well and good, but it's, you know...standard. You can see it anywhere. Things like this are why I like them.