The internal conflict between love and duty is a frequent instigator of the plot of many operas. Bellini's heroine is torn between the sacred duty of serving herown people and the love she feels for the enemy conqueror. She finds the solution in her own, personal sacrifice.

Although rarely performed, Mazeppa is considered the most powerful opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto, which was based on Pushkin's narrative poem Poltava abounds with correspondences with the composer's life, which make Mazeppa one of his most personal works.

At the end of the anniversary season, Opera ensemble of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, conducted by maestro Nikša Bareza, will perform fragments from the most significant works of the rich Croatian opera heritage.

A perfect way to start a Sunday morning - with a cup of coffee and a cake, followed by one hour of popular chamber music performed by top artists - will be at your disposal in the forthcoming season as well in one of the most beautiful spaces in Zagreb, in the foyer of our theatre.

With his Don Giovanni Mozart joins a small group of the immortals, whose names and works will never be forgotten, said the equally immortal Sören Kierkegaard.

A Masked Ball is the most popular opera from Verdi’s so-called transitional period. Its popularity is the result of the unique melodies and sparkling arias of all protagonists, with orchestral embellishments and a dramatic charge which rises uninterrupted to the very finale.

The story about the martyrdom of the nuns from Compiègne was first told by one of them, mother Marie, who had survived the terror of the French Revolution and published her memoirs.

Rossini’s most popular opera is considered the best comic opera ever. The libretto was written by Cesare Sterbini, following Le Barbier de Seville, the first part of the Figaro trilogy by Beaumarchais.

Cinderella is the most complex of all Rossini’s operas because, besides the recongizable and unsurpassed sense of comedy, it abounds with the elements of opera seria, and is musically more demanding than any score he had written so far.

Falstaff is actually a combination of three Shakespeare’s works and more refined than its models. Falstaff is not so much a victim of deception and schemes, but the occasion for fun, jokes and laughter. Richard Strauss proclaimed Falstaff one of the greatest operas of all times.