ABROAD AND AT HOME
Year composed
Duration
1980
90 minutes
Scored for
Availability
Classical Orchestra
Hire
About
Comic opera composed on remaining musical fragments by Ivan Mane Jarnović, André Grétry and William Shield, libretto was reinvented and adapted to Dubrovnik dialect by Luko Paljetak. (Orchestra material and libretto are lost, probably in the fire of Covent Garden)
Premiered in Osor Musical Evenings on JUL 17 1980, Symphony Orchestra of Zagreb Radiotelevision, Festival ensemble, director Daniel Marušić, conductor: Igor Kuljerić.
CD At Home and Abroad - A Comic Opera Musical Evenings in Osor, Fonoars, RTZ
(Jugoton, LSY 61528/29, 1980)
Program notes
Original: Doma i u buži
Fragments of original vocal lines and bass, together with a few notes about the instrumentation were found in Covent Garden. The opera was initially a collaboration between the famous French composer of the time A. Grétry, the famous English composer and violinist W. Shield and Ivan Mane Jarnović, renowned and respected violinist from Croatia, and was first performed in 1797 .
Having obtained those scarce remains from the British Museum, Kuljerić, with full respect of the Rococo style, developed and composed a possible restoration and re-imagination of the opera. The interest for such almost totally reconstructive work can be found in the fact that this might be the earliest example of Croatian opera.
"We could discuss about the nature of this work…. »At Home and Abroad" or, in the original "King's Bench" is actually a series of songs, ie popular melodic compositions united as a whole, or rather a musical play with songs. Apart from this dilemma, this discovery imposes another one - first, whether it is an opera at all, then whether it can be considered our first opera, considering that Jarnović is one of the three signed authors and finally whether Jarnović is a Croatian composer at all….According to some historical sources, Jarnović was born in Ragusa - Dubrovnik. In addition, his surname is quite common in our region…
Evidences could be found in the score that Jarnović, composed the most of the work. who was a violinist and it can be concluded from the score that he wrote most of that musical work. So we can say that it is his opera after all." (I.K. from an interview in Večernji list 1980)