Author(s): Marija Živković / Language(s): Croatian
Issue: 3/2022
The paper examines the relevance of the critical reception of premiere ballet performances of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb from 1995 to 2002, the period in which the director of the Ballet was Almira Osmanović. Since reviews are mostly published in newspapers (daily, weekly or biweekly), the main methodological framework for their valorisation is the classification of reviews, which, according to Radomir Životić, is the most effective in the context of newspaper review, and which – depending on whether the criteria for evaluation are within or outside the reviewed piece – can be immanent or internal and transcendental or external; the difference between these two reviews consists of similar premises as between normative and existential review. Furthermore, according to Životić, reviews can be impressionistic, dogmatic, scientific (erudite), biographical, positivistic, traditionalistic, psychological, formalistic, symbolic and interpretive. The analysis of critical reception points to the conclusion that most critics of ballet performances of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb in the observed period reviewed them impressionistically and sporadically, sometimes even less than that – in texts that could hardly be called reviews in the true sense of the word. Three critics stood out with their predominantly formalistic approach, but also with the rarity of their publications, while only a few critics stood out with relevant and continuous reviews of repertoire choices in which they usually combine normative, impressionistic, dogmatic, erudite, traditionalistic, formalistic, symbolic and/or interpretive approach.
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