Do You know the story about Lisinski Concert Hall?
For 33 years now the Lisinski Palace has been changing the face of Music in Zagreb. It has made it possible for renowned Orchestras from all over the world to perform here, for Croatian artists to gain parity with foreign achievers and for the Zagreb audiences to truly enjoy world class music.
The Lisinski is firstly a magnificient concert hall. Secondly, it is a place for theater performances, art exhibitions, literary evenings, international congresses, political rallies, festivals, artistic competitions, industrial presentations and many other events. Around 400 events each year are attended by about 400,000 people who have the one thing in common - the achievement of high artistic and professional criteria.
Our celebrated primadonna Ruza Pospis Baldani rightly titles her memoirs on the occasion of her thirtieth jubiliee: Zagreb before and after the Lisinski Hall. Truly, this Palace of Music has become a landmark and one of the symbols of modern Zagreb. Familiarly people call it, as the center of excellence, the measure of good taste, the space in which jeans and furs equally coexist, one of the five best acoustic venues in the world, simply 'Our Lisinski'.
The list of renowned orchestras who have and will play here is long but to mention a few, we include The London Philharmonic, The Vienna Philharmonic, The Bavarian State Orchestra, The Netherlands Philharmonic, who all played in 2006. Many famous soloists from Lang Lang to Julia Fischer have performed in the Hall. In the spring of 2007 we shall also see the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic.
The Palace, which was designed by the famous architect Marijan Haberle and his team, is a cultural monument. The maintenance of it is of great concern. Many huge changes have been made thanks to the Mayor of Zagreb, Mr Milan Bandić, and the City fathers. A new aluminium-glass façade has been erected, a new parquet flooring and new seats have been introduced in the big hall and the state-of-the-arts digital recording equipment has been installed with multi-media systems and equipment for simultaneous translating and the like.However much still remains to be done, many repairs and replacings have to be done.
The carried out changes and the Hall’s diligent professional team of ample experience vouch that the Hall will become The Zagreb Hall for the 21st century. However, we still need two new capital buildings: a modern theatre for operas and musicals and a big congress centre to house several thousands.
This will of course stir up the huge forces of artistic creativity as well as successful business activities in the above fields. The work ethos in the Lisinski, which offers an abundance of different interesting activities and professional satisfaction, will turn more and more to the public and to the challenges to come.
Lovro Lisičić,
General Manager
