INTERVIEW WITH MS. NATASHA POPOVIKJ – DIRECTOR OF OHRID SUMMER FESTIVAL 2022
This year’s Ohrid Summer Festival, the 62nd in a row, is in full swing. Let’s start with a simpler, current question:
Q: How satisfied are you with the work completed by you personally as the first person of the Ohrid Summer Festival, of course also by the other administrators, during the organization, the preparations, and now with the realization of this significant, multi-decade and most famous event in our country?
Popovic: It will be immodest if I praise myself, but I can freely say that everyone, starting from me to all the other administrators of the festival, gave our best to start this year’s Ohrid Summer Festival as befits a festival that enjoys a huge reputation in the region. The opening ceremony on July 12th was magnificent, the Ancient Theater gathered an audience of several thousand people who enjoyed the four top Italian tenors Alessandro Cosentino De Acrisa, Federico Serra, Giovanni Maria Palmia and Hugo Tarquini who created a magical night under the direction of Maestro Lorenzo Bizzari. The festival started well for us, and we as a team are still doing our best to make every night until August 20th special for the audience. All administrators of the festival are up to the task, which makes me very happy.
Q: This year, more than 1000 artists from 25 countries around the world will perform at Ohrid Summer Festival. Did you, together with the selectors of the program of this year’s Festival, manage to bring the artists you wanted to be part of this tradition of ours?
Popovic: More than 1000 artists from 25 countries are part of this year’s Ohrid Summer Festival. The program for one festival edition begins to be prepared immediately after the previous one has finished because, as is known, artists have pre-determined agendas and it is very difficult to plan their participation in late we would say. Therefore, even after the completion of the 61st edition in August last year, we started working on this year’s edition. The program, I think, befits a big and important festival like ours. There is always an artist that we don’t manage to bring due to a combination of circumstances, but most of those we have planned we have on our stages and all of them are known and recognized in what they do.
Q: How much support is needed for the successful organization of such a worldwide manifestation, and from whom do you get it?
Popovic: The support of all is the most important, starting from the patron, the President of the country, through the departmental Ministry of Culture, which allocated much more funds for the realization of the Festival this year, and thanks also to all the sponsors who support the Ohrid summer, including Pivara Skopje. It is a special honor for us that Pivara Skopje is also part of this year’s event, when it celebrates its 100th anniversary. I hope that in the future we will continue our long-term partnership, which has lasted for more than 30 years, and together we will create moments worth remembering and contribute to the protection of tradition, culture, art. There is also the media, our faithful friends who provide enormous support at the festival. We also receive support from the audience, who leave satisfied with the concerts and drama performances, thus giving us an incentive to offer them the best.
Q: Last year in November, at the General Assembly of the European Festival Association (EFA), you, as the first person of the Ohrid Summer Festival, were named as one of the five honorary delegates in a competition of 170 delegates from all member countries of this association. Ohrid Summer Fesival has been a member since 1994. In what way will this recognition open new doors, opportunities and paths for the Ohrid Summer Fesival in terms of further establishing and climbing the ladder of success in the global framework?
Popovic: I received the title of honorary delegate in Galway, Ireland at the 68th EFA General Assembly. Ohrid Summer Festival has been a member of EFA since 1994, and this is due to the quality that this festival has nurtured for 62 years. Not to sound immodest, but Ohrid Summer Fesival is counted among the top five festivals in Europe, not only for its long history of existence but also for the quality of the program. There are more than 350 delegates at EFA, including directors of festivals and cultural institutions. The honorary delegates include musicians, and as you know, I am also an artist-pianist. Meetings with EFA representatives always make me happy because I see it as an opportunity for greater development of the festival and climbing up the ladder.
Q: Since you are at the head of such a top manifestation affirmed in world artistic achievements, of course you have faced a great painstaking work that requires a lot of effort, but also a huge desire and motivation – drivers as a guarantee of success. Can you tell us who or what is the biggest challenge you have as the first person at such a manifestation?
Popovic: It is very difficult for me to answer this question. The biggest challenge in my life is music, starting with classical, it is my world, my microcosm. As long as I am in that world and work in that world, I do not see hard work, but an immense pleasure that cannot be described in words. I don’t notice the work during the year when preparations are made, and when the festival starts, because the evening concerts are a feast for the soul and every good concert gives me an incentive to bring the best further. This is a festival that requires a huge organization and lasts for 40 days, but, I will say again, it is my world and that is what I know how to do best.
Q: If you allow me, a constructive-critical question: What, in your opinion, needs to be improved in the future for the Ohrid Summer Festival to be an even more successful event, what are the weak points that need to be constantly improved so that the Ohrid Summer Fesival without hesitation is part of the world elite of cultural events?
Popovic: Ever since I was appointed director of this institution, for me every year should be better than the previous one. This does not mean that there are weak points, but that there are always new ideas and motivations from the previous year for the coming year. The Ohrid Summer Fesival, in terms of program and quality of the program, does not lack anything. Every year there should be new artists, new experiences, new challenges. Perhaps the city of Ohrid lacks a concert hall, regardless of the fact that our primacy is the church of Saint Sophia, which has allowed this festival to survive for 62 years due to its timeless acoustics. There are also the Dolni Saraj and Ancient Theater open stages, but when the weather conditions are not suitable, I would like the city of Ohrid to have an alternative option – another closed hall that would be used by other institutions for congresses, symposiums, and we from the Ohrid Summer Festival could also use it for seminars, workshops and for certain theater performances, and maybe for a bigger concert.
Q: What is your vision for Ohrid Summer Festival 2032?
Popovic: If I had been asked this question four years ago, perhaps I would have answered it much easier because for the first time humanity was faced with a terrible health pandemic caused by COVID-19, which was a fight for survival and fear from day to day, and neither did I, nor all the rest of us could plan so long term. Now my vision for the Ohrid Summer Festival is, above all, that we all be healthy and happy, that we manage to break through this web in which we are entangled because of the virus and the global economic crisis that affected the whole world, so it didn’t pass us by either. I have a vision for the Ohrid Summer Festival to keep what it is doing, not to change the already paved path, but to have many other novelties as well. My plan is for the Ohrid Summer Festival to have its own orchestra, which I hope I will be able to realize already next year. It will feature local musicians, as well as musicians from Serbia and Albania. You know, at the recent “Open Balkans” summit held in Ohrid, at the culture panel all the regional countries agreed that the Ohrid Summer Festival is the greatest cultural heritage in our country, which made me very happy. Precisely because of that, I have to do something new for that festival and I will start by forming an orchestra at the Ohrid Summer Festival.
No matter that we have brought the best artists to the festival, every year new and new top artists, musicians or actors come out and that’s why we wish we have them all. My vision is to make a film production, to introduce the film in the festival. It may sound illogical, but if I remain at the head of this national institution, we will have a connection with the largest film industry in the United States, Hollywood. I would not like to reveal ahead of time, but for next year we have an announcement of a big Hollywood star who will be in the program of the festival, but more on that later.
