June 26, 2020 – We are a little more than two weeks away from the Jubilee 60th Split Festival at Prokurative, which began its story back in 1960.
Slobodna Dalmacija writes that over a time that includes the Homeland War, as well as many other social turbulences, the festival has spawned more than two thousand songs and many great hits (“Nima Splita do Splita”, “Moj galebe”, “Picaferaj”, “Skalinada”, “Ne diraj moju ljubav”, etc). It seems that, as things stand now, not even the coronavirus pandemic will not stop the cult festival.
Director Tomislav Mrduljaš says that everything is ready for July 11 and 12, when a retro evening with hits that marked the past decades of the festival should be held, interpreted by the best performers from the Croatian stage, and finally an evening of new songs.
Twenty-two songs have been selected, some of which were written during the recent quarantine in March and April. Some of the musicians you’ll be able to see at Prokurative are Neno Belan, Jole, Goran Karan, Ibrica Jusić, Mladen Grdović, Klapa “Rišpet”, Alen Nižetić, Teddy Spalato, Giuliano, Petar Dragojevic, Marko Tolja, and Frajle from Serbia.
HRT will broadcast everything live, starting at 9:30 pm, as it has in previous years. However, given the re-emergence of the coronavirus, the question is whether there will be any changes, which Mrduljaš is aware of. All of his plans, unfortunately, are still up in the air.
“We regularly monitor the entire situation, measures and instructions of our National Headquarters and we will act in accordance with them. So far, there are no changes, the production is going according to plan and we are not thinking about postponing the date, but we are very organized. Of course, I’m not happy about everything that is happening with the corona again, but I can guarantee that we will hold the festival in safe conditions and that no one will be endangered,” Mrduljaš points out and adds that the festival orchestra of 30 to 35 people will be on the spectacular stage, as well as four backing vocals.
“All of them will be separated from each other as prescribed by the measures. There are no stands this year, and we decided to put round tables with chairs. In total, we will be able to accommodate up to 500 spectators, and we have also organized this in a way that respects the spacing. It may happen that the operation of catering facilities will be banned again, so it is possible that this won’t happen, but it is difficult at this moment to predict what will happen,” says Mrduljaš.
In that case, it is easily possible for the Split Festival to be held without an audience, or a scene of visitors with protective masks on their faces awaits us, but everything will be clearer in the days ahead.
“We listen to the news day by day, the performers call me, some of them are worried, but we hope that everything will be fine, there is no reason to panic… I repeat, we will behave as we are told. The plan was to symbolically mark the beginning of some kind of tourist season in Split, for our local people to come, even those outside Split. Let them be convinced that they can spend their summers in our beautiful Dalmatia in safe conditions,” concluded Tomislav Mrduljaš.
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