
Dunja Vejzović - Biography
EDUCATION
Dunja Vejzović was born in Zagreb, the daughter of J. Crnković (a UNO expert) and D. Crnković Očko (an architect). After a degree in printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts, she studied and graduated in solo voice at the Music Academy in her native city. She then pursued further studies, in Lied, at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart. Recently, to her many musical activities she has added the study of Conducting.
SINGING CAREER
In her first engagement in the Nuremberg Opera House, she was at once in the casts of great productions and worked with well-known conductors like Hans Neunfels, Hansgünter Heyme and Werner Düggelin. After that came guest appearances away from Nuremberg. After her first performance of Kundry in Parsifal and as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre in Basel, she was invited to sing Kundry in Bayreuth, a role that she took in three festival seasons.
At that time Herbert von Karajan invited Dunja Vejzović to take the parts of Kundry and Ortrud for performances at his Salzburg Easter Festival. For studio recordings in DGG’s Parsifal and EMI’s Lohengrin, she won the Prix Fanny Heldy. Together with Maestro Karajan, she recorded the role of Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer.
Dunja Vejzović has appeared on the stages of almost all the great opera companies: La Scala of Milan, the Metropolitan, Hamburg and Vienna Opera, at premieres and in leading roles. She has worked with such conductors as Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel, Silvain Camberling, Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Lovro von Matačić, George Pretre and Christoph Eschenbach, with whom she has recorded the Death of Cleopatra by Berlioz and Brahms’ Alt Rhapsodie.
She has performed with some of the great names of the opera repertoire; for example, in Hérodiade together with Monserrat Caballé, Jose Careras and Juan Pons; with Jose van Dam in the Le Vaisseau fantôme She has performed very often in her home country Croatia; we might especially mention her parts in Norma with Miro Belamarić and in Nabucco as Abigaille, with Pavle Dešpalj and with Mladen Tarbuk. At a grand concert celebrating the 60th anniversary of Croatian RadioTV with Nikša Bareza, she sang the final song of Salome. Her stage work with the American director Robert Wilson has been particularly productive: in his remarkable performance of Parsifal in Hamburg and Houston and in Gluck’s Alceste in Stuttgart as well as in Hagoromo at the event Maggio Musicale in Florence.
The scope of her many recitals and concert appearances are testified too by the many live and CD recordings with her permanent duo partner Đorđe Stanetti (piano), Dunja Vejzović Live, Schubert Die Winterreise and with the guitarist Darko Petrinjak.
Being an equal master of both concert singing and the interpretation of the Lied, since 1995 she has been engaged in teaching voice, transferring to the younger generations some of her great artistic experience. In this she places the emphasis on the old belcanto school that she acquired during her work with the legendary Iris Adami Coradetti and Gina Cigna in Italy. She has had a well recieved career as voice teacher at home and abroad at music colleges (Graz 1996/1997, Zagreb 1995/2000 and 2012-2020 as well as at Stuttgart, 2000-2012. Many students who have graduated under Dunja Vejzović have received prizes and gone on directly to appear on the operatic stage and the concert platform.
See: list of students
MASTER CLASSES
Dunja Vejzović has held masterclasses on the island of Rab since 2000 that have become a veritable institution. The final concerts, accompanied by the orchestra of Rijeka Opera, conducted by Nada Matošević, Mladen Tarbuk and now Dunja Vejzović herself are the peak of the summer season not only for the local population and visitors, but by transfer to the Rijeka Opera, where young singers can experience encounters with a broad public.
As well as in courses in Italy at the Scuola opera italiana Bologna, Holland at IVC s’ Hertogenbosch, Germany at Bückeburg and the Opera Studio of Staatsoper Berlin, Jennersdorf ISA and Mexico, Dunja Vejzović is a regular member of the jury at important competitions of the Zagreb Scholarship Competition (of which she is the founder), of the IVC s’ Hertogenbosch, the R. Wagner in Venice, the Hugo Wolf in Slovenj Gradec and is president of the Santa Chiara Competition in Naples.
VERO VISION
Together with her husband Christian Romanowski, in 1992 Dunja Vejzović founded Vero Vision, a platform for various branches of cultural activity through which they have directed and produced a large number of important projects, assisted by the City of Zagreb and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia (competitions, scholarships, operatic performances, CD issues and books).
See: VERO Vision
AWARDS AND COMMENDATIONS
In recognition of the great value of her work, Dunja Vejzović has received numerous domestic and international prizes. Among the most recent are the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Croatian Theatre and the Vladimir Nazor Prize that is awarded to the most prominent Croatian artists for lifetime achievements.
In 2010 the President of the Federal Republic of Germany awarded Dunja Vejzović the decoration Das Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande for services for cultural and social cross-border exchanges of young people in music.
PRIZES: List of Prizes
In Croatia
1996 City of Zagreb Prize
I. pl. Lukačić Prize
1982 Milka Trnina Prize
1993 Stolzer Slavenski Prize
1983 Vladimir Nazor Prize
1996 Croatian Daystar Decoration
1989 Orlando Prize, Dubrovnik
Medal of Varaždin Baroque Evenings
1999 A Porin Award for her especial contribution to musical culture and three more prizes
Honorary Citizen, City of Rab
Honorary Member of the R. Wagner Association
2013 Croatian Actors’ Association Lifetime Achievement Award
2019 Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Prize
International
Orphée d’Or
1981/82 Fanny Heldy Prize for the part of Kundry
1984 Fanny Heldy Prize for the part of Ortrud
1981/82 André Messager Prize for the best disk of the year (Parsifal)
2010 Bundesverdienst Kreuz
Recordings
1977 Bruno Bjelinski Candomblé Jugoton Stereo LSY-66022
1979 Franz Schmidt Fredigundis Voce -85
1981 Richard Wagner Parsifal LP 2741002/3382002-5MC, CD 413347-2 Kundry
1981 Dunja Vejzovic Jugoton Fonoars LSY-66123
1982 Franz Liszt Christus Metronome Musik Vipro klassic 0180075 LC 8644
1982 Richard Wagner Lohengrin EMI 1C165-43 200/04 CMS 7693142
1982 Alban Berg Excerpts from Wozzeck EX92T47
1984 Richard Wagner Der Fliegende Holländer EMI 27001333 LP 157, CD CDS 7470548
1984 L. van Beethoven Missa Solemnis LC4101 IMS 0984
1984 Jules Massenet Hérodiade, LR203/3
1986 Dunja Vejzovic and Darko Petrinjak Jugoton Fonoars LSY-65073/4
1989 G.F. Händel Judas Maccabeus RTB 33035
1989 Saverio Mercadante La Vestale Buongiovanni GB2065/66-2
1990 Hector Berlioz La Mort de Cleopatre Supraphon 110389-10/3/1 ZA
1990 Antology Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra 1980-1990 RCO 08005 14 CD
1991 Mozart in Zagrebu Orfej HRTV LP 3003 SOKOJ
1993 Johannes Brahms Alt Rhapsodie Virgin Classics VC5 45006 2MP518
1993 Ivan Lukačić Sacrae Cantiones CD ED.0101, CD ED.0102
1993 Dunja Vejzović Live Sony/VERO Vision CD DV 101 Dunja Vejzović Live
1993 Franz Schubert Die Winterreise VERO Dokumenti 1CC DV 103 DDD
1997 Gala concert 25th Anniversary of Varaždinske Barokne Večeri CDVBO 110
1998 Stanko Horvat Šum Krila Šum Vode Three Croatian composers HDS CD 98898498382
1999 R. Wagner Wesendonck Lieder In Memoriam L.von Matačić 2 CCDV 104
2002 Dunja Vejzović in Zagreb Orfej HTR CD ORF 247
2005 Pergolesi Stabat Mater Zagrebački Solisti CD 5652533
2011 Davorin Kempf Croatian Contemporary Composers 9889849142
2015 Leoš Janaček Jenufa OEMS Classics OC 962
2016 Ernst Krenek Orpheus and Eurydice C 923 1621 Stereo DDD
2021 Tripple CD Dunja Vejzović Live recordings from concert 1. Zagreb Soloist; 2. Zagreb guitar trio; 3. Zagreb philharmonic
DVDs
1992 Richard Wagner Lohengrin, dir Claudio Abbado, Placido Domingo, Cheril Studer, Hartmut Welker Staatsoper Wien
1983 Puccini Suor Angelica La Scala Milan, dir Gavazzeni, Rosalind Plowright
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