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Founded in 1961, the Ohrid Summer Festival on picturesque Lake Ohrid in southeastern Macedonia (both the city and the lake are protected UNESCO monuments) has grown in prestige with the passing years as word spread among artists and performers that this is, indeed, a unique cultural event on the European arts calendar. Festival director Zoran Strezovski and artistic programmer Ilko Stefanovski invited no less than 1700 artists from 45 countries to participate at the 45th Ohrid Summer Festival (12 July to 20 August 2005). Altogether, the catalogue listed 65 official programs; however, considering the ad hoc events, there were certainly more. Organized through the Macedonian Ministry of Culture and supported heavily by the news media, the festival drew a large home public from across the country (you could see posters decorating the streets of Skopje), scores of tourists (mostly from western Europe), and art aficionados who like to travel the arts festival circuit.

Spanish tenor José Carreras opened the Ohrid festival in the acoustically ideal and atmospheric Antique Theater, an ancient Greek arena seating 8000. According to a news source, this one-time performance was sold out within a hour after the tickets went on sale. Carreras thrilled his public with arias from Johann Strauß, Donizetti, Léhar, Gounod, Mascagni, and other composers under the baton of fellow Barcelona conductor David Ramirio Gimenez. Joined on the floor of the arena by young Spanish soprano Tina Gorina, the José Carreras Gala was aired live on Macedonian Television (MTV).

Some other theatrical performances in the Ancient Theater were also major attractions. Fittingly, Aristophanes’ Lysistrata was staged in the arena by a Greek ensemble, the »Pammitis« University Theater — the performance was just one stop on the ensemble’s summer tour of antique theaters in Turkey, Cyprus, Spain, and Italy. Crowds turned out, too, for a local folk opera: R. Avramoski’s Lydia from Macedonia, performed by the Macedonian Opera and Ballet with soloists and musicians added from Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. And the tourists flocked again to the arena for a performance of Macedonian National Songs and Dances by the »Tanec« Ensemble.

Another choice venue for theatrical performances was the Vestibule of the Church of Saint Sophia in the middle of the city. Here, the Drama Theater Skopje performed Molière’s Don Juan, the National Theater Bitola was present with Shakespeare’s Richard III, and the Turkish Theater Macedonia collaborated with National Theater Bitola and the Laboratorio Nove Florence on an international production of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. From Russia came performances of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard by the Kazan State Theater and Brecht’s Baal by the »Vera Komissarzhevskaya« Drama Theater in St. Petersburg ensemble. »Russian productions are always welcomed in Ohrid,« said an Ohrid festival faithful, »particularly when one considers that in the 10th century the Cyrillic alphabet made its way from the St. Clement School in Ohrid to Kiev in the Ukraine.«

Among Ohrid’s 35 churches is one with breathtaking beauty: St. Sophia. Built at the beginning of the 11th century, then converted into a mosque during the 500-year reign of the Ottoman Turks, the frescoes on the walls have been partially restored to their original splendor. Acoustically speaking, the church is appropriate for choral groups and concerts, but dramatic performances are also the order of the day. The »GlinkaLaquo; Choir sang Russian melodies by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. The Budapest Chamber Orchestra played Mozart, Mendelssohn, Britten, and Saint-Saens, accompanied by Georgian cellist Liana Issakadze. The Munich Philharmonic was present with Brahms, Dvorak, and Strauß. Since this is the »Schiller Year« (the 200th anniversary of the death of Friedrich von Schiller), a »German Day« featured poems and ballads rendered in German by actress Dorothea Moritz, with the translation of the Macedonian text beamed onto a screen.

Another dramatic highlight was the performance by the Sarajevo Kamerni Teater 55 of Helver’s Night by Ingmar Villquist (pen name for Polish dramatist Jaroslaw Swierszcz). Directed by Dino Mustafic, this two-person Kammerspiel is set in pre-Nazi Germany just as brown-shirt gangs were roaming the streets. A mother (Serb actress Mirjana Karanovic) seeks in vain to protect her grown but mentally retarded son (Bosnian actor Ermin Bravo) from the street gangs by dressing him up as a Hitler Youth. All in vain. He is soon discovered and a rock in thrown through the window of the family apartment. In the end, the mother feels compelled to poison her son with her own hand, rocking him gently to sleep in her arms, rather than to permit a more horrifying fate at the hand of the Nazis.

With a budget of 500,000 Euros the Ohrid Summer Festival was reckoned by critics and public as a grand success on the artistic side. Only one problem had to be faced and resolved almost daily: how to quarter so many visiting artists during the high season for tourists. With 50 sponsors lending a hand, however, the festival was a smooth-running machine from start to finish. »It was an immense job to coordinate hotels, cars, restaurants, air tickets, time schedules, and who-knows-what« said a relieved Zoran Strezovski at the end of the festival. The Ohrid Summer Festival benefits indirectly from its membership in the European Association of Festivals, based in Geneva. But the primary acknowledgment goes to the cultural partners. »For the German Day a personal thanks goes to Volker Marwitz, head of the Goethe Institute in Belgrade, and to Matthias Vollert, the cultural attaché at the German Embassy in Skopje,« said Ilko Stefanovski. »Each year, we can build on the rewards of the year before as we prepare for the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the Ohrid Summer Festival in the year 2010.«

Ron Holloway