For a full six years, together with your team, you have been developing a non-governmental non-profit organization – Musical Opera and Theater Organization – MOTO. What, in addition to the career of an opera artist, led you to embark on these waters?
– Many years of experience on the opera and concert stage, collaboration with various institutes of culture, conversations and exchange of experiences with colleagues, as well as gatherings with young artists who are entering into professional life and find it difficult to cope because they are facing with difficult conditions, all of these are the initiators of the idea of founding MOTO. Through our work, before the establishment of the organization, we realized that the conditions in our culture will not change for a longer time if we wait and that it is necessary for each of us to set an example of personal engagement. Changes are possible if you work on them, and I think that MOTO has shown that with its previous successes.
Do you think that independent organizations and productions are the future, or do you think that they are already an important element of the theatrical market, both in our country and in the world?
– Independent organizations are already an important element of the cultural market in general, and I think it will take time to be even more important. Independent organizations have the ability to strengthen their capacities separately from institution. We have the opportunity to choose associates, we work on our own responsibility without conditioning, we share our capacities within the organization, but also in cooperation with other organizations and individuals. The latter is of special importance, because in this way independent organizations can influence on the development of innovative and critical artistic practices and the development of cultural policy.
For these years, MOTO has carried out numerous projects through which artists of various profiles have passed. Can you single out certain projects that you consider the most successful?
– MOTO is primarily made up of people, their energy and ideas, our tireless Author team that works continuously and creates good working conditions and realization from the impossible to the successful. In six years we have worked with wonderful artists and collaborators, met great new people, discovered hidden talents and accomplished numerous successful projects. Due to the quality of our work, we are supported by the most important institutions in the country, and since last year, also from the European Commission. As the most successful projects, I can also list the most sustainable ones, and these are surely “Summer opera school”, training of young opera artists, for five years and “Gift of Diversity”, an inclusive project with young people with autism and developmental disorders, four years in a row.
How do you rate the presence of opera and classical music in media with national frequency in our country today?
– Unfortunately, the current situation in our country is very bad. Artistic music in Serbia is still positioned as an elitist entertainment for a small number of citizens, also dogmatized and inaccessible to the general public, uncovered by the media, neglected, and inadequately represented in school curricula. The young audience is not given the opportunity to create a musical taste, so they naturally turn to the popular content which are easy to understand, banal, simple and often third-rate.
What do you think is the cause of this?
– There are certainly many causes that have influenced this situation. Since the crisis of the nineties – the fall of all values, the serving of cheap content that attracts the masses will increase the number of viewers, and with that the financial gain, disinterest of a journalist or editors to initiate other content. We have good examples on Radio Belgrade and some other media, but unfortunately, they are rare and insufficiently visible. There are few available quality recordings that would be interesting to a wider audience, and as one of the causes can be stated by the non-existence of adequate management and insufficient interest. The importance of the artists themselves is the duty of the media to offer young people a quality program, and it is generally done to the contrary, forasmuch all the bad products that are served to them. Unfortunately, this is a much broader topic and there is no way to ask ourselves what we are giving to young people and what kind of generations do we leave behind?
The portal you are talking about is just one of the projects of the MOTO organization. Where did the idea for its launch come from?
– Ideas for all projects that MOTO does come from practice. For a long time now, all of us in the industry have been struggling with the flow of necessary information. It is difficult for young artists to get information about auditions, competitions, performances, masterclasses, how to adequately present themselves and that it is not self-marketing on social networks which they often look very bad and pretentious, and they need to have as much information as possible, so that they can acquire and selection criteria. Fellow pedagogues often have interesting workshops, lectures and schools, and the problem is how to reach the user. The idea is to connect with concert and opera agencies that would announce their competitions on our portal, and they would also have access to the presentation of our artists.
What are the basic goals and tasks of the portal?
– The “Portoopera” portal is intended for all young opera and music creators, as well as those who want to be informed in a timely and accurate manner about events in opera and music world. We would like this portal to network and connect artists, their ideas and to, as an educational platform, educates, informs and promotes young talents. The name “Portoopera” is a symbol for the port of music, opera, games and creativity. We want young artists from all fields of art to be involved in the future, as well as young musicians, musical, theatrical and opera critics, so that we can contribute together to improve.
Can we expect Portoopera to be the bearer of this trend in Serbia?
– I hope so. However, it is certainly a great challenge for our team to lead this portal. It depends on their engagement, dedication and work how much they will be able to develop this platform.
Which spheres of art this portal will cover?
– Artistic areas that participate in the creation and realization of an opera, and that means everything.
In your opinion, what is the greatest value or innovation that Portoopera brings?
– Portals that deal with opera, streaming, critics and other, are certainly exist, but they are intended for young artists and their needs, they do not exist in this way. I think that the greatest value is the idea of the whole project “Opera: Past, Present, Perfect!” in the framework of which this portal began its work, and that is the connection and education of young opera professions-las with a goal of reconsideration of the opera context and its position in the modern world. We have wonderful talented young people and we believe that it is our obligation to help them approach the opera art in a slightly different way from what they have learned: to research, to educate, develop critical thinking and bring the new energy into operatic art without denial the past – make a new opera future!
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