FAMOUS CROATS, Srebrenka (Sena) Jurinac

Srebrenka (Sena) Jurinac (Travnik, 24 October 1921 – Augsburg, 22 November 2011), a soprano diva, a great Croatian vocal artist, joins the few special Croatian female singers who have conquered the most prestigious world opera stages. She went to school in Zagreb and studied singing at the Academy of Music in Zagreb under Marija Kostrenčić. Even during her studies, she performed at the Croatian National Theater, attracting attention with the beauty of her refined musicality. She distinguished herself in several roles, with a special emphasis on her main role at the premiere of Boris Papandopulo’s opera “Sunčanica” held in 1942, under the composer’s conducting and directed by Branko Gavella. A year later, Oktavijan Miletić entrusted her with the role of Sidonija Erdődy in his film Lisinski. In 1944, she successfully auditioned at the Vienna State Opera, where she remained until her retirement in 1982. Not only did she portray many roles but she also built an international career that took her from Vienna to major opera stages worldwide. She performed at La Scala in Milan, the Paris Opera, Covent Garden in London, opera houses in Brussels, Zurich, as well as in San Francisco, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Sydney and at festivals in Edinburgh, Glyndebourne (regularly from 1949), Florence (Maggio musicale), the Bayreuth Festival (1957) and Wiesbaden. In her home theater, she interpreted the majority of soprano roles, gradually transitioning from lyric to dramatic roles. Throughout her career, she collaborated with the greatest conductors of the 20th century, from L. Matačić and H. von Karajan, under whose baton she performed at the Salzburg Festival in the role of Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro by W. A. Mozart, to W. Furtwängler, O. Klemper, H. Knappertsbusch and E. Kleiber. Croatian audiences surely remember her last magnificent performance in Croatia when, in 1978, at the Varaždin Baroque Evenings, accompanied by Zagreb Soloists, she performed an aria from the opera Julius Caesar by G. F. Händel, leaving an indelible mark. Erika Krpan, musicologist and a member of the Croatian Composers’ Society