Ero the Joker by Gotovac, Nuo (2022/2023), Režisierius Krešimir Dolenčić,, Dirigentas Josip Šego, HNK, Zagreb, Croatia

The most successful and popular work of Jakov Gotovac, the opera E ro s ona svija, has long been counted among the most successful Slavic comic operas, and since its premiere in Zagreb's HNK in 1935, it has almost never left the repertoire of all Croatian national theaters. Numerous reviews of plays staged on foreign stages rate Era as a trademark of Croatian opera, which transmits the songs and dances of its homeland to the world, where dramatic words and music are ideally combined. The musical color, exuberant orchestration, lively rhythms, singing vocal lines that flow continuously are closely related to the exceptional libretto by Milan Begović, full of witty and ingenious lyrics. The main character of the opera and the initiator of the action is Mića, a young man from a rich rural family of Dalmatian Zagora. While he is trying to find a girl to marry, on his mother's advice he presents himself as a poor man, like Ero from the other world, because he wants to be sure that his chosen one, Đula, sincerely loves him. Although he deceived many, in the end everything is forgiven and he gets the girl he loves. The opera's effective ballet finale, with its furious pace, is a kind of ode to the folk way of life, in which the music imbued with the ethnos of the Dalmatian hinterland comes to the fore.