music & society
By A. Gavrilović Na hrvatskom
March 2010 The Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall was sold out for weeks before the concert of Croatia's "greatest" pianist. And why not, for is he not our greatest hero, who has "flown the flag" for Croatia in Europe and Japan?
It's no wonder the response was huge, because the concert had been advertised for weeks on TV, and the pianist's face was on billboards all around town. Of course, the Concert Hall was full.
After a performance of more than two hours, he received a massive, standing ovation. He was marvelous, said most of the media. (The orchestra was not mentioned at all, of course.) Unfortunately, this flattering description is not at all accurate. Actually, Maksim Mrvica, the world famous Croatian crossover pianist, gave a faulty performance of crossover pieces that were already too simple, too boring and too repetitive. To make matters worse, the piano sounded like a dying cat and the speakers were playing taped recordings of shallow-sounding drumming while the real orchestra drummer was bored to death doing nothing.
None of this is very strange. The real horror story comes a few months later. A Thursday in February: today's concert in Lisinski was not advertised at all. Not one single poster could be seen around town. No TV commercials either. Why not? I cannot give an answer to that question. After all, wasn't today's performer Stephen Kovacevich, accompanied by the Croatian Radio and Television Orchestra? I had my own misgivings: after all, tickets were only 40 kunas, whereas the mega-popular Maksim Mrvica would never settle for anything less than three figures. But then again, who am I to question the great, immutable laws of the market?
The Concert Hall was half empty. Actually, by my estimate, only one third was occupied, and after the interval even less. Who knows, maybe people thought it was some other pianist? The Lisinski website gave his name as 'Steven', not 'Stephen'; perhaps people got confused? An honest mistake — not as if it were one of the greatest American pianists whose name they misspelled...
Truth be told, the concert was not flawless — Kovacevich himself made a few mistakes, and the equipment also misbehaved — for example, a microphone fell into the piano during the performance...a couple of times.
But then again, all of this is to be expected nowadays from Croatia's biggest concert hall — isn't it?
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